BBC NEWS | Education | Spoilt children 'disrupt schools':
"If you are in a situation where you have got to work, you can't be with your child and you can't be giving it the sort of values that the older generation did."
Teachers 'find drugs and weapons'.
WTF is going on here? Are we all going to hell in a hand basket or what?
balcony
I'm slightly obsessed with this sea front building... ever since I realised it had appeared in an episode of 'Men Behaving Badly'. It was odd watching an old repeat of this sitcom in my new flat - knowing that only yards away was the very building that was in the show.
Now after the relative success of the new Warnes Building next door - developers have been given the go ahead to 'convert'* this building into (yet more) luxury apartments. Country councils up and down the UK have been doing this - allowing property developers to build nice looking apartments and housing estates for well, millionaires. Except none of these councils seem to be able to grasp the plain and simple fact that just aren't enough millionaires in this country that can afford those places... so all these buildings end up standing empty. (There was a very similar phenomenon that took place in the Eighties - where because of the boom years - developers went mad building lots and lots of office space - and totally forgot all about building houses for people to live in. Of course boom turned to bust - and oh so many brand new office buildings stood empty for want of any new businesses to move into them.) Of course we're now on the brink of a massive credit crunch and those cheap mortgage deals that have feed the housing price rises and rises and rises of the past decade or so - are no longer to be had. I've got a feeling that once these apartments have been finished - there's a good chance they're going to be standing empty for a long while.
2006 article in the Argus.
*I say convert - because I think the whole interior is being totally gutted and rebuilt from scratch with only the facade remaining in place but radically cleaned and tidied up - that's if it doesn't accidentally collapse meantime.
Has market fundamentalism had its day?
Johann Hari: Has market fundamentalism had its day? - Independent.co.uk:
"From the trauma of the Great Depression to 1973, there was a broad consensus across the democratic world that markets were absolutely essential to generate wealth, but they will also cause all sorts of problems if they are left unregulated. Economists like JM Keynes and JK Galbraith taught us that if you abolish markets, you get starvation; but if you abolish all the democratic checks and balances on markets, you get a system that eats itself. Unregulated businesses will cause unsustainable levels of pollution and inequality, and ultimately start pursuing unhinged business models that cause the whole system to collapse."
Lost Remaining Mysteries
I keep meaning to compile my own list - featuring such mysteries as 'why is Miles such a dick?' 'why is Charles Widmore such a dick' 'why can't anyone give a plain straight answer to anything?' but until I get around to it - here's someone else's list...
Lost Remaining Mysteries | Lost Showguide | UGO.com
Lost Remaining Mysteries | Lost Showguide | UGO.com
Lost vs the Prisoner
With ITV2 having recently started a re-run of 'The Prisoner' - I've had these thoughts running around my head: Here's a comparison chart...
(which for the life of me I can't get to play nice in blogger. You'd tink it'd be eeeeasy. But I so suck at html. Actually for no readily apparent reason blogger has decided to whang in about a thousand 'break' tags before the table starts... bizarre. Here's what it should look like: link.)
(which for the life of me I can't get to play nice in blogger. You'd tink it'd be eeeeasy. But I so suck at html. Actually for no readily apparent reason blogger has decided to whang in about a thousand 'break' tags before the table starts... bizarre. Here's what it should look like: link.)
| Comparisons | |
|---|---|
Lost | The |
| The protagonists wake up to find themselves in mysterious location totally cut off from the outside world. | The protagonist wakes up to find himself in mysterious location totally cut off from the outside world. |
| Locals 'The Others' that seem brainwashed and either can't or won't ever tell the truth or answer direct questions. Mind games ahoy. Who's good? Who's bad? Who's being manipulated? Who's on who's side? | Locals 'The Villagers' that seem brainwashed and either can't or won't ever tell the truth or answer direct questions. Mind games ahoy. Who's good? Who's bad? Who's being manipulated? Who's on who's side? |
| Mysterious unseen leader: Jacob | Mysterious unseen leader: Number One. |
| Strange other-worldly supernatural creature – once described as a security device. 'Smokey' | Strange other-worldly security devices I.E. the giant white balloons – affectionally called 'Rover'. |
| Complicated scientific high technology laboratories conducting various strange experiments. | Complicated scientific high technology laboratories conducting various strange experiments. |
| Heightened paranoia – no one knows who they can trust or believe. | Heightened paranoia – no one knows who they can trust or believe. |
| Dharma brand logo on everything. | Penny-farthing brand on everything. |
| Surveillance cctv. A bit aged now – but still functional. | Surveillance cctv. |
| Comfy suburbia for the others at least. | Comfy suburbia with a sinister twist. |
GateWorld - Tapping talks Sanctuary, Atlantis
Mmmmm. Looking at the preview it looks a bit like an Americanised version of Torchwood vs the weevils or something.
[PS - talking of Torchwood have I mentioned how rubbish I think this current series has been?]
GateWorld - Tapping talks Sanctuary, Atlantis
[PS - talking of Torchwood have I mentioned how rubbish I think this current series has been?]
GateWorld - Tapping talks Sanctuary, Atlantis
Yi Yeon
(NB: this little rant won't make any sense until you've watched the episode first.)
Dammit.
I had thought that with the cut-down shortened seasons we'd seen the last of 'Lost' churning out their pointless filler episodes - that we were going to get more meat than potatoes up until to the end of the show's run. But oh no... big filler episode here and more annoyingily - one that self-consciously and most self-congratulatory plays with it's own format. I can see them now in the writer's staff room:
A: Hey, you know how for the first three seasons we had a flashback every episode to establish and explore each character's background?
B: Well d'uh. Yeah.
A: Then last season we went all 'flash forwards' with Jack - the first time playing it like it was a flash back.
B: Hell yeah, we were so completely pleased with ourselves we went on a whole weekend champagne and coke bender.
A: Well this time how about having (tee hee, tee hee) ...both. In the same episode and playing it so everyone watching will think it's all in the same time frame. 'Cause - y'know, we're all about playing with timelines and that now... us having got that copy of 'Dummy's Guide to Stephen Hawking' and found a few wikipedia articles on all that stuff.
B: Yeah - that'll be great and everyone will acknowledge our genius and we'll get even more awards and ...hey, I'll get the champagne shall I...
----
Not that the payoff wasn't quite touching - but they could have achieved the same ends without Jin's flashback at all - that was completely and utterly pointless - a silly piece of rubbish screwball comedy just to deliver the 'I've only been married two months' line. All they were missing at that point was a "whaaa-whaaa-whaaa" on the soundtrack.
And as for Michael on the Freighter - oh wow, didn't see that one coming. Oh no. Not with Harold's name in the opening credits in every episode. They needed a quick 'Whaaa-whaaa-whaaaa' on that one too.
Dammit.
I had thought that with the cut-down shortened seasons we'd seen the last of 'Lost' churning out their pointless filler episodes - that we were going to get more meat than potatoes up until to the end of the show's run. But oh no... big filler episode here and more annoyingily - one that self-consciously and most self-congratulatory plays with it's own format. I can see them now in the writer's staff room:
A: Hey, you know how for the first three seasons we had a flashback every episode to establish and explore each character's background?
B: Well d'uh. Yeah.
A: Then last season we went all 'flash forwards' with Jack - the first time playing it like it was a flash back.
B: Hell yeah, we were so completely pleased with ourselves we went on a whole weekend champagne and coke bender.
A: Well this time how about having (tee hee, tee hee) ...both. In the same episode and playing it so everyone watching will think it's all in the same time frame. 'Cause - y'know, we're all about playing with timelines and that now... us having got that copy of 'Dummy's Guide to Stephen Hawking' and found a few wikipedia articles on all that stuff.
B: Yeah - that'll be great and everyone will acknowledge our genius and we'll get even more awards and ...hey, I'll get the champagne shall I...
----
Not that the payoff wasn't quite touching - but they could have achieved the same ends without Jin's flashback at all - that was completely and utterly pointless - a silly piece of rubbish screwball comedy just to deliver the 'I've only been married two months' line. All they were missing at that point was a "whaaa-whaaa-whaaa" on the soundtrack.
And as for Michael on the Freighter - oh wow, didn't see that one coming. Oh no. Not with Harold's name in the opening credits in every episode. They needed a quick 'Whaaa-whaaa-whaaaa' on that one too.
it's my tern
[I'm so narked that I took a few movies with my new camera at 'Living Coasts' only to later find that the sound was turned off by default. The fantastic noise a lot of them were making was one of the main reasons I wanted to film them in the first place. *sigh* The aztec terns were particularly chatty.]
an ode to the melodramatic nude male photographers and self-portraitists of flickr - a photoset on Flickr
It's going to drive me crazy trying to find the original photos these are all based on....
an ode to the melodramatic nude male photographers and self-portraitists of flickr - a photoset on Flickr
an ode to the melodramatic nude male photographers and self-portraitists of flickr - a photoset on Flickr
macaroni
[my bird pictures on flickr never get many views but toys and chocolate pictures do - what's that about?]
Dear ISP, I am not a target market
Dear ISP, I am not a target market.
mmmm - a 'choice' between having any old commercial thrown at me - or especially targeted ads? Mmmmm - think I'd chose none of the above.
mmmm - a 'choice' between having any old commercial thrown at me - or especially targeted ads? Mmmmm - think I'd chose none of the above.
Republican Ideology Has Broken the Economy
Hale "Bonddad" Stewart: Republican Ideology Has Broken the Economy
"Unchecked capitalism is a bad idea. That's what we've had. And it has failed."
"Unchecked capitalism is a bad idea. That's what we've had. And it has failed."
The Cold War-Era Assault on Comic Book Culture, Revisited
The Cold War-Era Assault on Comic Book Culture, Revisited: "'For the first time, a whole generation felt like, Here's something created by other young people for me,'' Hajdu says. But McCarthyite politicians in search of new enemies, foreign and domestic, zeroed in on the corrupting influence of this cheap, unregulated entertainment."
Desmond
Oh, at long last an episode of Lost I really enjoyed for once. It pushed the Island mystery nicely along and actually even started to explain a few things - it even had a nice love story at the core of it that I found quite genuinely touching (I've long since come to generally despise most of the other characters in this show now - with the exception of maybe Hugo/Hurley (what are we supposed to be calling him now?)). Not that we didn't know from the previous big Desmond-centric story that time traveling wasn't going a big part of things somehow or other... but anyhooo
So Desmond's last name is Hume hey. Another important name in philosophy - something to do with cause and effect and perception and things like that.
(digression: I was going through a few piles of my books trying to find my copy of "A Brief Experiment With Time" by John Dunne - but that was because I had mis-remembered his name thinking it was possibly by Hume. Couldn't find it - but it's full of stuff about dreams and remembering the future and ...stuff. But I'm guessing now that it's such an obscure book that the writers won't have ever heard of it anyway.)
Lapidus is another interesting choice for a character's name: He wrote a book with the interesting title - "In Search of the Riemann Zeros: Strings, Fractal Membranes and Noncommutative Spacetimes" (I'll bet the Butler did it.)
Things I wondered: - with Minkowski becoming ill and getting nosebleeds and terribly incoherent before finally keeling over and dying - could this be what Rosseau thought of as the 'illness'? [I haven't forgotten you know - Lost writers - I and many others are keeping track] Maybe the injections - the vaccine Desmond spiked himself with daily for 5 years have been anti-radiation sickness medicine?
Penny said she knew about the Island. Oh yeeeeas. Has been looking for Desmond only in the past 2 years or so (what brought that on? Why leave it so late.) Oh and by the by - he's not going to be one of the Oceanic 6 - the creators might even kill him off just for the sheer spite of it....
Oh, and is Widmore being played by the same actor who recently was playing a naughty evil scientist type in Torchwood recently and who used to be in one of the Aussie soaps - Neighbours or Home and Away or something? Which is all - cool.
So Desmond's last name is Hume hey. Another important name in philosophy - something to do with cause and effect and perception and things like that.
(digression: I was going through a few piles of my books trying to find my copy of "A Brief Experiment With Time" by John Dunne - but that was because I had mis-remembered his name thinking it was possibly by Hume. Couldn't find it - but it's full of stuff about dreams and remembering the future and ...stuff. But I'm guessing now that it's such an obscure book that the writers won't have ever heard of it anyway.)
Lapidus is another interesting choice for a character's name: He wrote a book with the interesting title - "In Search of the Riemann Zeros: Strings, Fractal Membranes and Noncommutative Spacetimes" (I'll bet the Butler did it.)
Things I wondered: - with Minkowski becoming ill and getting nosebleeds and terribly incoherent before finally keeling over and dying - could this be what Rosseau thought of as the 'illness'? [I haven't forgotten you know - Lost writers - I and many others are keeping track] Maybe the injections - the vaccine Desmond spiked himself with daily for 5 years have been anti-radiation sickness medicine?
Penny said she knew about the Island. Oh yeeeeas. Has been looking for Desmond only in the past 2 years or so (what brought that on? Why leave it so late.) Oh and by the by - he's not going to be one of the Oceanic 6 - the creators might even kill him off just for the sheer spite of it....
Oh, and is Widmore being played by the same actor who recently was playing a naughty evil scientist type in Torchwood recently and who used to be in one of the Aussie soaps - Neighbours or Home and Away or something? Which is all - cool.
RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue | TorrentFreak
RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue | TorrentFreak: "Despite collecting an estimated several hundred million dollars in P2P related settlements from the likes of Napster, KaZaA and Bolt, prominent artists’ managers are complaining that so far, they haven’t received any compensation from the labels. According to a lawyer, some are considering legal action."
...
"It’s being claimed that after legal bills were subtracted from the hundreds of millions in settlements, there wasn’t much left over to hand out."
Mmmm. Now remind me, what was the RIAA originally set up to do again? Was it to make a handful of lawyers obscenely rich by sending out a flurry of frivolous, malicious and unprovable lawsuits was it? It's done that bit very well - very well indeed.
...
"It’s being claimed that after legal bills were subtracted from the hundreds of millions in settlements, there wasn’t much left over to hand out."
Mmmm. Now remind me, what was the RIAA originally set up to do again? Was it to make a handful of lawyers obscenely rich by sending out a flurry of frivolous, malicious and unprovable lawsuits was it? It's done that bit very well - very well indeed.
UK Govt. - Vote for us to punish the unemployed
There's something rather nasty going on Politics at the moment. Recently both main parties have been falling over themselves to put forward their new schemes for -well, what amounts to punishing the long term unemployed and people on incapacity benefits for being unemployed long term.
Two million 'wrongly get benefit'.
Wherein an investment banker (!!!) pulls figures out of his arse - to justify a reform of the system.
(I can't help but point out that if many people are indeed working illegally while claiming - then I wonder just how many have been forced to do so simply because the benefit rates are so low that they couldn't hope to pay their bills otherwise!
I also can't help but wonder what fee this banker got for this little job. I'll wager it was quite a bit over the minimum wage! And what does he know about things like benefit rates, social conditions, the localised economic situations, etc. etc. Surely all he knows is how to make money. [update: oh what a giveaway! "Today, on a visit to a job placement centre in Newham, I asked Purnell whether he was happy for people to get rich helping the unemployed. "Yes" he answered without so much as a blink."])
Tories plan 'work for benefits'.
Someone interviewed by the BBC site made a very good point - that they make criminals do hours of 'community service' as a punishment. What have the long term unemployed done exactly that means they should be treated in this way?
"Arbeit mach frei" anyone?
(There are already hundreds of these firms across the country and believe me, they're pretty much totally useless. I've had personal experience of them.)
To the last news piece - this is the response I wrote to the BBC website - I'll doubt they'll publish it - and even if they did it'll doubtless get buried under the massive amount of mentally-diseased comments they're bound to get from the 'Daily Mail' 'Daily Telegraph' readers calling for anyone who's been unemployed for longer than three months to be shot dead. Seriously fat people and the unemployed are seen as the last two groups in society it's acceptable to bash. So the venom really gets flowing on this issue.
Of course what is definitely going to happen shortly - is that there's going to be a massive serious economic downturn - if not an out and out recession - where many businesses are going to fail and unemployment rates are set to start going through the roof again. The only growth then will be in these private firms and they'll be bursting at the seams with new clients while the pool of jobs they try to push them into will be constantly shrinking. But no one's thought it through to start heading that one off. Tough times lie ahead.
Two million 'wrongly get benefit'.
Wherein an investment banker (!!!) pulls figures out of his arse - to justify a reform of the system.
(I can't help but point out that if many people are indeed working illegally while claiming - then I wonder just how many have been forced to do so simply because the benefit rates are so low that they couldn't hope to pay their bills otherwise!
I also can't help but wonder what fee this banker got for this little job. I'll wager it was quite a bit over the minimum wage! And what does he know about things like benefit rates, social conditions, the localised economic situations, etc. etc. Surely all he knows is how to make money. [update: oh what a giveaway! "Today, on a visit to a job placement centre in Newham, I asked Purnell whether he was happy for people to get rich helping the unemployed. "Yes" he answered without so much as a blink."])
Tories plan 'work for benefits'.
Someone interviewed by the BBC site made a very good point - that they make criminals do hours of 'community service' as a punishment. What have the long term unemployed done exactly that means they should be treated in this way?
"Arbeit mach frei" anyone?
Private firms to find people work.
(There are already hundreds of these firms across the country and believe me, they're pretty much totally useless. I've had personal experience of them.)
To the last news piece - this is the response I wrote to the BBC website - I'll doubt they'll publish it - and even if they did it'll doubtless get buried under the massive amount of mentally-diseased comments they're bound to get from the 'Daily Mail' 'Daily Telegraph' readers calling for anyone who's been unemployed for longer than three months to be shot dead. Seriously fat people and the unemployed are seen as the last two groups in society it's acceptable to bash. So the venom really gets flowing on this issue.
I've got a much better idea - rather than contract these Private firms to do anything. Let's simply not have them in the first place. Get rid of them altogether. In fact - what we should do is totally dismantle the entire DWP/DSS, sack every last person involved with it - break it up completely - sell off all it's assets, and then with the proceeds and the money saved - give every man woman and child in the this country their share of the money to do with what they want. It is, strictly speaking, our money anyway. The cannier ones will invest it and be able to live off the proceeds for the rest of their lives without having to work again. Others will be able to set up their own businesses and become self-employed. Or whatever. Sure, the less canny will probably fritter it away within a few years and we'll see a lot more people in the streets with begging bowls before long. (But given the useless and punitive schemes both the parties are proposing we'll likely to be seeing that anyway.) But it's obvious the system as it is broken, and hasn't worked for decades - it's extremely wasteful and costly in itself, and in many ways it actively, deliberately conspires to keeps people poor. (A big labour pool always means wage demands can kept low.) And every time - again and again - it totally ignores some blatantly obvious facts, such as: that there are far currently more people than there are jobs to be filled, that some locations have more industry than other areas, that too many businesses don't pay enough in wages, that in many cases the minimum wage is far, far too low to live on (which is why a great percentage of the population are now heavily reliant on 'tax credits', that the working population in this country work far longer hours than is good for them (whatever happened to the idea widely prevalent in the Sixties/Seventies that we would all be working only three to four hours a week by now?), that the education system is failing us, the whole live-to-work mentality in the UK is a form of mass insanity in itself, (another example: what exactly is the point of forcing single mothers into work just so that they are then forced to spend whatever money they earn on childcare costs?), the list goes on and on. No wonder the rates of mental illness are at an all time high...
There really needs to a be a commission studying the whole range of issues surrounding 'work' in the UK, because the various problems are a lot deeper rooted than anyone cares to admit. But instead we get the poor, the unemployed, the sick, the disabled being constantly demonised while wave after wave of half-baked private 'businesses' and 'charities' set themselves up - earning themselves nice fat commissions and nice wages patronising the disadvantaged. While giving the impression to the gullible types (the sort of person who reads the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail usually) that something is being done.
Of course what is definitely going to happen shortly - is that there's going to be a massive serious economic downturn - if not an out and out recession - where many businesses are going to fail and unemployment rates are set to start going through the roof again. The only growth then will be in these private firms and they'll be bursting at the seams with new clients while the pool of jobs they try to push them into will be constantly shrinking. But no one's thought it through to start heading that one off. Tough times lie ahead.
Torchwood ep: 'A day in the death'
To quote Catherine Tate's Nan character: 'Warra load of shit'.
Seriously, don't you need a character to be, I don't know - be actually likeable and broadly sympathic first before you start demanding that we care anything about him in a whole story?
And besides - if - because he's dead (in a way that's a complete and total rippoff of the film 'Death becomes her') he can't heal - then how is he able create new memories - because it's brain cells creating new connections that make memories. Oh, the whole thing is so stupid it's annoying. At least Martha is out of the picture for a while. Sorry, but I just don't like her. I really don't. Her teeth are too big.
Seriously, don't you need a character to be, I don't know - be actually likeable and broadly sympathic first before you start demanding that we care anything about him in a whole story?
And besides - if - because he's dead (in a way that's a complete and total rippoff of the film 'Death becomes her') he can't heal - then how is he able create new memories - because it's brain cells creating new connections that make memories. Oh, the whole thing is so stupid it's annoying. At least Martha is out of the picture for a while. Sorry, but I just don't like her. I really don't. Her teeth are too big.
thinking about modern pop combos
I'm kind of half watching 4music discussing the upcoming NME awards - and er... what is it with all these bands today - they're all the same. Guitars and floppy hair - it's a worry. It's like there's no care given to the visual anymore. I find that a bit depressing.
Anti-depressants' 'little effect'
BBC NEWS | Health | Anti-depressants' 'little effect'
Oh but they're so much cheaper and easier than oh, therapy, making sure people have a decent standard of living, have got a decent work-life balance, good food, good housing, good health, a social life, etc. etc. etc.
Oh but they're so much cheaper and easier than oh, therapy, making sure people have a decent standard of living, have got a decent work-life balance, good food, good housing, good health, a social life, etc. etc. etc.
so materialism undermines childhood?
What gets me is that they needed a special report to find this out?
Never mind though, the global recession that's just around the corner will take care of that for us.
Never mind though, the global recession that's just around the corner will take care of that for us.
The Embassy: Pataphysics Department of Reconstructive Archaeology. Repro Tableau
The Embassy: Pataphysics Department of Reconstructive Archaeology. Repro Tableau: "Anthony Aloysius St. John Hancock (1924-1968) has long been acknowledged as a truly exceptional artist, yet his actual pictorial and sculptural oeuvre continues to be unjustly neglected. Despite a certain cult following Hancock's work is still chiefly known from the bio-documentary account of his Paris years, 'The Rebel' (1960), a film whose treatment of his work is far from reverential."
Eggy Rebel, Rebel
So Rakka posts a a great picture of a painted egg she'd made of Bender.
So I make a comment about 'going to work on an egg' which means I look up the phrase and find out Tony Hancock did the first series of TV adverts for eggs - which coincidently had their anniversary last year - and they wanted to reshow some of the ads on TV - but weren't allowed to. And it being Tony Hancock I remembered him being in one of my all time favourite films - 'the Rebel' and that a while back a group of artists had recreated a few of Hancock's artworks from the film, and the irony is that a lot of them were far, far better than the artwork of the 'real' artist in the story in the movie. God those artworks were so bland and insipid. (You really have to see the movie to know what I'm talking about.) And anyway - I wanted a place to put all these bookmarks for myself. So this is how this blog entry came to be...
So there it is.
So I make a comment about 'going to work on an egg' which means I look up the phrase and find out Tony Hancock did the first series of TV adverts for eggs - which coincidently had their anniversary last year - and they wanted to reshow some of the ads on TV - but weren't allowed to. And it being Tony Hancock I remembered him being in one of my all time favourite films - 'the Rebel' and that a while back a group of artists had recreated a few of Hancock's artworks from the film, and the irony is that a lot of them were far, far better than the artwork of the 'real' artist in the story in the movie. God those artworks were so bland and insipid. (You really have to see the movie to know what I'm talking about.) And anyway - I wanted a place to put all these bookmarks for myself. So this is how this blog entry came to be...
So there it is.
5 Reasons Scifi Does Better In Movies Than In TV
(I'd have said they were as equally bad or as good but for different reasons.)
Movies Vs. Television: 5 Reasons Scifi Does Better In Movies Than In TV
Movies Vs. Television: 5 Reasons Scifi Does Better In Movies Than In TV
Paul O'Grady on the Doctor Who finale?
Whaaaa? This sounds like a -what do they call it - a spoiler-spoiler, a red herring - this can't be. Can it?
downthetubes.net news blog: Chat Show Horror?
downthetubes.net news blog: Chat Show Horror?
London mayor launches blitz on bottled water - Yahoo! News
We've long been overdue a backlash against stupid bottled water.
London mayor launches blitz on bottled water.
London mayor launches blitz on bottled water.
Lost notes 1 (Minkowski)
Incase you didn't know - quite a few of the character's names in the show have some sort of significance (I once thought this was ever so clever, back in season one that is, but I've long since realised that it's just another instance where the writers are trying to be too clever by half. Particularly when it's obvious that most of the time they can't decide if they're writing literature or soap opera.)
Anyway, Lost has been playing around with the notion of Time travel lately. They've got Desmond who traveled back in time through his own personal history and now he can see brief glimpses of the future... (nice trick.)
They've gone from having the show being about character's flashbacks to now where they're doing flash-forwards...
They've had a scene last episode where they've had a character called Faraday (yes another significant name - more blatant that one, since most of us vaguely know who Michael Faraday was) fiddling around with a tripod - scientific looking equipment - mini rockets and watches - making it clear to us there's a 31 minute difference between Island time and outside world time.
So when one of the new -and as yet unseen - characters is named Minkowski - you know it's got to mean something...
Anyway, Lost has been playing around with the notion of Time travel lately. They've got Desmond who traveled back in time through his own personal history and now he can see brief glimpses of the future... (nice trick.)
They've gone from having the show being about character's flashbacks to now where they're doing flash-forwards...
They've had a scene last episode where they've had a character called Faraday (yes another significant name - more blatant that one, since most of us vaguely know who Michael Faraday was) fiddling around with a tripod - scientific looking equipment - mini rockets and watches - making it clear to us there's a 31 minute difference between Island time and outside world time.
So when one of the new -and as yet unseen - characters is named Minkowski - you know it's got to mean something...
dead rubbish
You have got to be kidding me - Owen fighting 'Death' figuratively and literally. How lame is that?
Worse than that -the utterly annoying Owen character is still with us.
Worse than that -the utterly annoying Owen character is still with us.
Oxford to study belief in God
I can save them the money:
Scared little monkeys develop sentience and self-awareness - start to wonder where they come from. They figure out that since it's mommies and daddies getting together that make the babies - so by extension a big world needs a much bigger mommy and daddy to have made it. Some other little monkeys figure out that if they can tell stories about how the world was made - they get treated as special and the other monkeys look after them and do what they say and feed them etc. So they carry on making up bigger and better stories...
So many different stories - so many totally different creation myths... they can't possibly all be right.
We're here - so we obviously came from something/somewhere - but it's not from stories. Definitely not stories and ultimately that's all religion has to offer.
Wired News - AP News
Scared little monkeys develop sentience and self-awareness - start to wonder where they come from. They figure out that since it's mommies and daddies getting together that make the babies - so by extension a big world needs a much bigger mommy and daddy to have made it. Some other little monkeys figure out that if they can tell stories about how the world was made - they get treated as special and the other monkeys look after them and do what they say and feed them etc. So they carry on making up bigger and better stories...
So many different stories - so many totally different creation myths... they can't possibly all be right.
We're here - so we obviously came from something/somewhere - but it's not from stories. Definitely not stories and ultimately that's all religion has to offer.
Wired News - AP News
College Grad Succeeds With $25 And A Gym Bag
Let's rephrase this shall we?
A white, young, healthy, middle-class, male, college graduate plays at being 'poor' and 'destitute' for a few months as an 'experiment' - a bit of a game - with a credit card hidden in his back pocket he can use to bail him out in the case of any kind of emergency...
Mmmmm. Golly - I bet many of the people he shared the homeless shelter with and queued up for his food stamps alongside (btw is that even legal?) wished they had a emergency credit card and the knowledge they could go home to a loving supportive family when things got too tough and unbearable, or at the very least knew what they were living through was just for the one single year.
No doubt - he'll soon be writing a book, which he'll start making tv appearances to promote, which will be a best seller, then he'll probably go into politics as a republican and start lobbying that for what passes for a welfare system in the US should be totally dismantled - because, well, obviously no one needs to be poor and homeless if they've just got the right sort of can-do attitude and if they're just willing to work. He's living proof after all. *Cough-arrrogantasshole-cough*
Odd then, that if it's all that easy why isn't absolutely everyone doing it? Not to mention that - well, for a few people to be rich - there has to be an awful lot of poor people... but the Western world seems to like that way, so that won't be changing any time soon. Alas.
Now why does all this remind me of that little popular Britpop ditty that Jarvis Cocker used to sing?
Money: College Grad Succeeds With $25 And A Gym Bag
A white, young, healthy, middle-class, male, college graduate plays at being 'poor' and 'destitute' for a few months as an 'experiment' - a bit of a game - with a credit card hidden in his back pocket he can use to bail him out in the case of any kind of emergency...
Mmmmm. Golly - I bet many of the people he shared the homeless shelter with and queued up for his food stamps alongside (btw is that even legal?) wished they had a emergency credit card and the knowledge they could go home to a loving supportive family when things got too tough and unbearable, or at the very least knew what they were living through was just for the one single year.
No doubt - he'll soon be writing a book, which he'll start making tv appearances to promote, which will be a best seller, then he'll probably go into politics as a republican and start lobbying that for what passes for a welfare system in the US should be totally dismantled - because, well, obviously no one needs to be poor and homeless if they've just got the right sort of can-do attitude and if they're just willing to work. He's living proof after all. *Cough-arrrogantasshole-cough*
Odd then, that if it's all that easy why isn't absolutely everyone doing it? Not to mention that - well, for a few people to be rich - there has to be an awful lot of poor people... but the Western world seems to like that way, so that won't be changing any time soon. Alas.
Now why does all this remind me of that little popular Britpop ditty that Jarvis Cocker used to sing?
Rent a flat above a shop,
cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right,
cos when you're laid in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.
You'll never live like common people,
you'll never do what common people do,
you'll never fail like common people,
you'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw,
because there's nothing else to do.
Sing along with the common people,
sing along and it might just get you through,
laugh along with the common people,
laugh along even though they're laughing at you,
and the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that poor is cool.
Money: College Grad Succeeds With $25 And A Gym Bag
Michael Gene Sullivan: Government is Not a Business
Michael Gene Sullivan: Government is Not a Business
because that's a stupid idea.
He's entirely right of course and it points up where much of the Western world has been going wrong for the past two - three decades...
Now the world is run by wealthy, selfish and self-serving, greedy idiots - we're all in deep deep trouble.
because that's a stupid idea.
He's entirely right of course and it points up where much of the Western world has been going wrong for the past two - three decades...
Now the world is run by wealthy, selfish and self-serving, greedy idiots - we're all in deep deep trouble.
'Phoo Action' to return for series
Oh.
If Phoo Crap Pants gets a series and the excellent 'Being Human' doesn't. I shan't be happy. and it'll definitely prove that BBC execs can't tell shit from Shynola.
Television - News - 'Phoo Action' to return for series - Digital Spy
By the by - Russell Tovey = fwoarh!
If Phoo Crap Pants gets a series and the excellent 'Being Human' doesn't. I shan't be happy. and it'll definitely prove that BBC execs can't tell shit from Shynola.
Television - News - 'Phoo Action' to return for series - Digital Spy
By the by - Russell Tovey = fwoarh!
5 Questions the Lost Writers Need to Answer (And Why They Won't)
5 Questions the Lost Writers Need to Answer (And Why They Won't) | Cracked.com
Here's one:
Jack: "Hi Juliette"
Juliette: "Hi Jack"
Jack: "Say Juliette - you were living with those there 'Others' for a long while weren't you?"
Juliette: "yeah, I sure was."
Jack: "So what is the deal with those guys anyway? Like, why have they kidnapped our kids and some of us? Why have they been killing some of us? What's up with all the dressing in rags and the stupid mind games? What are they up to here on this Island anyway? Tell us everything you can - OK?"
Juliette: [taking a deep breath] "well... as far as I know..."
and what happened instead? Well not much, not much at all.
Here's one:
Jack: "Hi Juliette"
Juliette: "Hi Jack"
Jack: "Say Juliette - you were living with those there 'Others' for a long while weren't you?"
Juliette: "yeah, I sure was."
Jack: "So what is the deal with those guys anyway? Like, why have they kidnapped our kids and some of us? Why have they been killing some of us? What's up with all the dressing in rags and the stupid mind games? What are they up to here on this Island anyway? Tell us everything you can - OK?"
Juliette: [taking a deep breath] "well... as far as I know..."
and what happened instead? Well not much, not much at all.
IGN: IGN's Top 50 Lost Loose Ends
IGN: IGN's Top 50 Lost Loose Ends
Although there are plenty more unanswered mysteries on this show. Lostanswers blog - counts 226 - so far. I'm guessing most of them will never be answered satisfactorily - and the writers are hoping we'll just forget most of them... as they constantly layer a few more on for good measure.
Actually maybe it's possible the creators were counting on the show being canceled before the end of it's run - so they'd never have to tie up this many loose ends - and figured the show would live on in people's memories (and on DVD box sets) as they would drive themselves crazy trying to figure out what was supposed to be going on. When in fact all the writers were just winging it from day one, there is no real hard structure. That would make more sense than anything else. A bit like how David Lynch in 'Twin Peaks' never wanted to reveal who murdered Laura Palmer - and wanted the show to go on for years...
Although there are plenty more unanswered mysteries on this show. Lostanswers blog - counts 226 - so far. I'm guessing most of them will never be answered satisfactorily - and the writers are hoping we'll just forget most of them... as they constantly layer a few more on for good measure.
Actually maybe it's possible the creators were counting on the show being canceled before the end of it's run - so they'd never have to tie up this many loose ends - and figured the show would live on in people's memories (and on DVD box sets) as they would drive themselves crazy trying to figure out what was supposed to be going on. When in fact all the writers were just winging it from day one, there is no real hard structure. That would make more sense than anything else. A bit like how David Lynch in 'Twin Peaks' never wanted to reveal who murdered Laura Palmer - and wanted the show to go on for years...
Bare Bones Lost
So, there was this aeroplane crash. The plane - Oceanic 815 – already thousands of miles off course - split in two over an island and some of it's passengers crash landed onto this rather idyllic tropical island. The survivors don't know where they are – and no rescue party has ever come to relieve them and they're very much cut off from the rest of the world. Through a series of flashbacks (oh so many, many flashbacks) we have gotten to see that each of the main characters have had somewhat complicated and colourful lives and that a lot of their paths have previously criss-crossed each others to varying degrees - in one case unknown to themselves at least two of them are directly related as half brother and sister. But as each and every 815 survivor seems so doggedly reluctant to discuss anything of their life history to any other person – these coincidences are only ever known to the viewer. But, to be fair, much of the characters have a lot to hide: “hi, I'm on the run for murdering my alcoholic wife-beating father”, “hi, I'm a con man”, “hi, I used to torture people for a living.” etc. The Island itself seems to possess various certain mysterious powers – one in particular seems to be that of super-natural healing properties. It transpired very early on that one survivor had been wheelchair-bound prior to landing on the island but now is able to to walk. Another character had a diagnosis of terminal cancer but now feels herself completely healed. Another character was a heroin addict but was able to easily overcome their addiction with no ill-effects (cold turkey) whatsoever. Other characters having sustained quite serious injuries (usually knife or gunshot wounds) yet have been fully healed within a matter of days. However, the implication is that such healing is only in operation so long as the individuals concerned don't leave the island. This would go some way to explain why some – if not most, of the survivors have been rather half-hearted if not downright reluctant in their efforts to escape the island. All this despite the fact at any moment they could be eaten by a stray polar bear – or killed by a strange other-worldly monster made out of black smoke, or shot or stabbed or kidnapped by the Island's rather crazy original inhabitants, etc. Unnatural healing properties aside - once someone is dead – they remain dead – although this doesn't stop them appearing in visions to other individuals, and this happens quite often. People having very intensely vivid hallucinations is another aspect of the island's strange powers.
As already mentioned there are other people on the Island – known as 'the Others' – a highly secretive bunch – when they were first seen they liked to play 'dress up' wearing raggedy clothing and walking around barefoot – giving the impression that they had been on the Island a long time (and indeed they have) as survivors themselves – only it eventually became evident that the bulk of them have been living in fairly well-appointed comfort with all the modern suburbanite conveniences within a heavily protected and well hidden village. These Others are all extremely inscrutable and are totally incapable of giving any kind of a straight direct honest answer to any question asked of them, indeed, they could be said to all be pathological liars, are arch manipulators, emotional blackmailers and love nothing better than to play complicated psychological mind games and know far, far too much about all the survivors' personal histories. It's been established they even have extensive files on each survivor. They are also all exceptionally healthy and possess near super-human strength. One particular 'Other' has remained un-aged, looking exactly the same now as he did 20 or so years ago. (Unless he has been time-traveling. Which could be a factor.) It turns out that some of these people have been nipping on and off the Island to the outside world quite regularly via a submarine. Sometimes on recruitment drives to bring in new people to aid their cause – whatever that may eventually prove to be. Two members of these 'Others' infiltrated themselves among the 815 survivors (two because there were two groups of survivors when the plane split – one half landed inland – the other on the beach) – masquerading as survivors themselves to gain intelligence about them and help facilitate the kidnapping of certain members of the 815 – most particularity the children. The 'Others' are particularly interested in children and pregnant women. Apparently they have serious issues regarding fertility, for some reason women tend to die whilst giving birth on the island. The Island harbours a number of near derelict science research stations – originally established sometime in the early 1980s or mid 1970s by an organisation known as the 'Dharma Initiative'. Each station was dedicated to the in-depth research of a particular discipline – zoology, social observation, physics, medicine -etc. most are now in various stages of abandonment, while some are still in occasional use by 'the others'. One particular station was maintained by an individual -Desmond who was a survivor of boat crash onto the Island and whose sole purpose was to input a particular series of numbers into a computer every 108 minutes. He did this all alone for about five whole years, up until the station was broken into by a handful of the 815 survivors, who in a face-off with Desmond also managed to accidentally break the all-important computer, at which point he broke out of the station and ran away into the depths of the Island leaving the task of inputting the numbers up to them. Luckily one of the 815ers managed to repair the computer just in time. It was some weeks later - during the course of one episode (a season finale) when these numbers weren't input at the appointed hour – the entire station imploded. At the same time Desmond - who had since returned after some time away - activated some sort of 'fail-safe' mechanism. So far the consequences of this station's destruction, aside from the Island shaking violently and the sky turning purple for a few moments, is that the Island has suddenly become 'visible' to the outside world - it has also resulted in the Desmond character able to time travel back along his own life history and he is now has the ability to see brief flashes of future events. This may link up in some way to the newly established fact that in some peculiar way the Island exists out of normal time. Harking back to the Dharma initiative for a moment around ten or so years ago nearly all of the original staff of Dharma were murdered via a lethal gas bomb attack by the 'Others' – one person - Ben, who was the son of one of the Dharma workmen is now the leader of 'the Others'. Other note-worthy items:
A more recent addition is a invisible character called Jacob, who's supposedly the 'real' leader of the Others. Ben being the intermediary who claims to be able to see and hear him. That Jacob isn't a figment of Ben's warped imagination is that two other survivors have had brief momentary glimpses of him. Jacob 'lives' totally alone in a rundown shack – which is surrounded by a ring of grey ash – and the whole shack can apparently disappear and relocate and reappear at will.After writing this I've come to feel we, the audience are like the crash survivors – being presented with a barrage of incomprehensible circumstances, a steady diet of red herrings and MacGuffins and that the writer/creators are like 'the Others' – hell bent on withholding vital information, never giving out a straight answer to anything and who like nothing better than playing ridiculously complicated mind games on us.
As already mentioned there are other people on the Island – known as 'the Others' – a highly secretive bunch – when they were first seen they liked to play 'dress up' wearing raggedy clothing and walking around barefoot – giving the impression that they had been on the Island a long time (and indeed they have) as survivors themselves – only it eventually became evident that the bulk of them have been living in fairly well-appointed comfort with all the modern suburbanite conveniences within a heavily protected and well hidden village. These Others are all extremely inscrutable and are totally incapable of giving any kind of a straight direct honest answer to any question asked of them, indeed, they could be said to all be pathological liars, are arch manipulators, emotional blackmailers and love nothing better than to play complicated psychological mind games and know far, far too much about all the survivors' personal histories. It's been established they even have extensive files on each survivor. They are also all exceptionally healthy and possess near super-human strength. One particular 'Other' has remained un-aged, looking exactly the same now as he did 20 or so years ago. (Unless he has been time-traveling. Which could be a factor.) It turns out that some of these people have been nipping on and off the Island to the outside world quite regularly via a submarine. Sometimes on recruitment drives to bring in new people to aid their cause – whatever that may eventually prove to be. Two members of these 'Others' infiltrated themselves among the 815 survivors (two because there were two groups of survivors when the plane split – one half landed inland – the other on the beach) – masquerading as survivors themselves to gain intelligence about them and help facilitate the kidnapping of certain members of the 815 – most particularity the children. The 'Others' are particularly interested in children and pregnant women. Apparently they have serious issues regarding fertility, for some reason women tend to die whilst giving birth on the island. The Island harbours a number of near derelict science research stations – originally established sometime in the early 1980s or mid 1970s by an organisation known as the 'Dharma Initiative'. Each station was dedicated to the in-depth research of a particular discipline – zoology, social observation, physics, medicine -etc. most are now in various stages of abandonment, while some are still in occasional use by 'the others'. One particular station was maintained by an individual -Desmond who was a survivor of boat crash onto the Island and whose sole purpose was to input a particular series of numbers into a computer every 108 minutes. He did this all alone for about five whole years, up until the station was broken into by a handful of the 815 survivors, who in a face-off with Desmond also managed to accidentally break the all-important computer, at which point he broke out of the station and ran away into the depths of the Island leaving the task of inputting the numbers up to them. Luckily one of the 815ers managed to repair the computer just in time. It was some weeks later - during the course of one episode (a season finale) when these numbers weren't input at the appointed hour – the entire station imploded. At the same time Desmond - who had since returned after some time away - activated some sort of 'fail-safe' mechanism. So far the consequences of this station's destruction, aside from the Island shaking violently and the sky turning purple for a few moments, is that the Island has suddenly become 'visible' to the outside world - it has also resulted in the Desmond character able to time travel back along his own life history and he is now has the ability to see brief flashes of future events. This may link up in some way to the newly established fact that in some peculiar way the Island exists out of normal time. Harking back to the Dharma initiative for a moment around ten or so years ago nearly all of the original staff of Dharma were murdered via a lethal gas bomb attack by the 'Others' – one person - Ben, who was the son of one of the Dharma workmen is now the leader of 'the Others'. Other note-worthy items:
Aside from the Island's healing properties, and that it's somehow being hidden from the rest of the world, it also harbours some sort of living entity which is either composed of, or appears in the form of black smoke -(affectionately known by Lost fans as 'Smoky') – we've seen it drag off and kill one of the pilots of Oceanic 815, we've seen it drag one of the major characters along the ground at great speed and nearly drag him underground, we've seen it repelled by some sort of high tech sonic death-dealing security fence, we've also seen it approach another character and 'read' that character's mind in the form of brief flashes of that person's personal history. There are also vague implications that it can take on the form of deceased people who are known personally to other characters and talk to them.
A more recent addition is a invisible character called Jacob, who's supposedly the 'real' leader of the Others. Ben being the intermediary who claims to be able to see and hear him. That Jacob isn't a figment of Ben's warped imagination is that two other survivors have had brief momentary glimpses of him. Jacob 'lives' totally alone in a rundown shack – which is surrounded by a ring of grey ash – and the whole shack can apparently disappear and relocate and reappear at will.After writing this I've come to feel we, the audience are like the crash survivors – being presented with a barrage of incomprehensible circumstances, a steady diet of red herrings and MacGuffins and that the writer/creators are like 'the Others' – hell bent on withholding vital information, never giving out a straight answer to anything and who like nothing better than playing ridiculously complicated mind games on us.
sigh
Disney's home of the future
Disney Revives 'House of the Future': "The new home will be made of wood and steel and finished in muted browns and beiges"
Oh dear sweet Zeus will this Decade of the bland and the beige ever end? Will we ever see colour again? *Quietly weeps*
Oh dear sweet Zeus will this Decade of the bland and the beige ever end? Will we ever see colour again? *Quietly weeps*
Phoo Action
Oh.
Well this is pretty dreadful. When it comes to live action adaptations it's clearly apparent that poor Jaime Hewlett just can't find anyone to do his stream-of-consciousness fantasy cartoon world justice. IE this is, if anything, worse than that cringe-making cinematic embarrassment that was the Tank Girl movie. Something I would have thought impossible. But no, here it is moving right before my eyes – something far, far worse.
Everything is so stagy. Why are all the camera angles so flat and boring? The editing and cutting so drearily pedestrian. None of this depicts the manic energy of a Hewlett strip. And where did they find those two totally charisma-less lead actors from? In fact none of the other young actors can barely act at all – it's painful to watch. Not that matters too much when they've haven't got any decent dialogue to work with. There's no wit, no decent jokes, nothing. It isn't even up to the level of pantomime. I'm getting the sense that no one working on this show really had their heart in it. No one's putting that little bit extra into it to raise it above the mediocre.
The costumes of the Freebies are quite good. I suppose.
It's not as if it's impossible to do this low budget – high fantasy – highly imaginative comedy drama style – after all The Mighty Boosh have done exactly that and very successfully for four seasons now.
Actually what this show desperately needs is Joss Whedon lessons – it needs a bit of Buffy energy. Better fight scenes, better editing, better scripts, wit, glamour, – in short a complete overhaul. If it wasn't so geared to older teenagers and consequently had an adolescent sexuality to it meaning it can only be put on after the watershed – it should be shunted off to early morning CBBC where it can be quietly left to fade into a well deserved obscurity.
update:
I've just found out it was directed by Euros Lyn - of Doctor Who fame - he must be running on empty here. And written by Jessica Hynes - of Spaced. So it's doubly puzzling to me why it's so bad and so lackluster. But then again - maybe not. She seems to be better suited to writing gentler comedies now - like she did with her play 'Learners'. She should have been better writing this with her ex-comedy partner Simon Pegg who would have cranked up the jokes and the frenetic energy levels this show should have had.
Well this is pretty dreadful. When it comes to live action adaptations it's clearly apparent that poor Jaime Hewlett just can't find anyone to do his stream-of-consciousness fantasy cartoon world justice. IE this is, if anything, worse than that cringe-making cinematic embarrassment that was the Tank Girl movie. Something I would have thought impossible. But no, here it is moving right before my eyes – something far, far worse.
Everything is so stagy. Why are all the camera angles so flat and boring? The editing and cutting so drearily pedestrian. None of this depicts the manic energy of a Hewlett strip. And where did they find those two totally charisma-less lead actors from? In fact none of the other young actors can barely act at all – it's painful to watch. Not that matters too much when they've haven't got any decent dialogue to work with. There's no wit, no decent jokes, nothing. It isn't even up to the level of pantomime. I'm getting the sense that no one working on this show really had their heart in it. No one's putting that little bit extra into it to raise it above the mediocre.
The costumes of the Freebies are quite good. I suppose.
It's not as if it's impossible to do this low budget – high fantasy – highly imaginative comedy drama style – after all The Mighty Boosh have done exactly that and very successfully for four seasons now.
Actually what this show desperately needs is Joss Whedon lessons – it needs a bit of Buffy energy. Better fight scenes, better editing, better scripts, wit, glamour, – in short a complete overhaul. If it wasn't so geared to older teenagers and consequently had an adolescent sexuality to it meaning it can only be put on after the watershed – it should be shunted off to early morning CBBC where it can be quietly left to fade into a well deserved obscurity.
update:
I've just found out it was directed by Euros Lyn - of Doctor Who fame - he must be running on empty here. And written by Jessica Hynes - of Spaced. So it's doubly puzzling to me why it's so bad and so lackluster. But then again - maybe not. She seems to be better suited to writing gentler comedies now - like she did with her play 'Learners'. She should have been better writing this with her ex-comedy partner Simon Pegg who would have cranked up the jokes and the frenetic energy levels this show should have had.
Jamie Oliver is full of **it
Bizzare image from Jamie Oliver's 'Eat to save your life' tv show the other week that is now (god help me) etched into my mind forever:
Getting a member of the audience to bring in a -was it a day or a week's worth of his pooh. Jamie then got staff to wheel in what would be a whole year's worth of pooh for that person, it just filled a single wheel barrow and then compared that with a whole years worth of pooh for someone in some good-forsaken country who purportedly ate a better diet. It nearly filled the large studio.
The gist being that in the developed Western world we're not poohing enough and it's giving us bowel cancer.
So Jamie was basically saying we should be poohing a lot, lot more. I don't think our sewage system - which is already falling apart at the seams - could cope.
Getting a member of the audience to bring in a -was it a day or a week's worth of his pooh. Jamie then got staff to wheel in what would be a whole year's worth of pooh for that person, it just filled a single wheel barrow and then compared that with a whole years worth of pooh for someone in some good-forsaken country who purportedly ate a better diet. It nearly filled the large studio.
The gist being that in the developed Western world we're not poohing enough and it's giving us bowel cancer.
So Jamie was basically saying we should be poohing a lot, lot more. I don't think our sewage system - which is already falling apart at the seams - could cope.
Torchwood - Review - S02E04: 'Meat' - Digital Spy
A nice review - so I don't have to. I certainly liked it better than the past two episodes.
I'll only add that I didn't care much for Gwen's shouting fit and storming around at the end of the episode. After all why bother erasing Rhys' memory anyway? This is a world that has had a spaceship crash into Big Ben - a giant spaceship hover over London one Christmas, has had ghostly Cyberman appear all over the world and Daleks killing people in canary Wharf - and in Cardiff has had a giant uber demon whose shadow killed hundreds in the streets? And even little old ladies in the street know about Torchwood. A space alien whale seems to pale against all that... all that isn't general knowledge is that have their secret base in the middle of Cardiff. That's about all.
I'll only add that I didn't care much for Gwen's shouting fit and storming around at the end of the episode. After all why bother erasing Rhys' memory anyway? This is a world that has had a spaceship crash into Big Ben - a giant spaceship hover over London one Christmas, has had ghostly Cyberman appear all over the world and Daleks killing people in canary Wharf - and in Cardiff has had a giant uber demon whose shadow killed hundreds in the streets? And even little old ladies in the street know about Torchwood. A space alien whale seems to pale against all that... all that isn't general knowledge is that have their secret base in the middle of Cardiff. That's about all.
shredded
I happen to like bitesize shredded wheat - have done so for years. But their commercial for it drives me insane. A selection of different women (I had no idea this was a cereal designed exclusively for women - this was news to me) seem totally bemused by this cereal for consisting of nothing but wheat. No added sugar - no nothing - just wheat. Er, but you HAVE TO ADD MILK AND SUGAR TO IT FOR IT TO BE EDIBLE YOU MORONS! Otherwise it's straw you're eating - and you couldn't get through a bowl of it dry. It's also pretty revolting if you eat it without sugar too - unless you like the taste of raw cardboard.
Repossession Repossession Repossession on ITV 1
Ah. At last. So now I finally get why over the years I've seen people around me getting seemingly richer and richer - while I've struggled on in at the same level of poverty. Not when I couldn't see the UK making much of anything - (isn't nearly everything in the world made in China now?) - even 'Brit pop' is a distant memory. We don't even have Saddam Hussein to sell arms and devices of torture to anymore. So apparently most people have been living off credit from them borrowing against their vastly over-valued houses. Which they're paying for - with a mortgage - but, but isn't a mortgage a type of loan in itself? Surely no one really actually owns their home until they've paid that off do they? Oh. So in fact they're borrowing against something they're already borrowing to pay for something they don't yet own...
Human beings are f*c*ing morons aren't they?
You see, I've lived through recession after recession through the Thatcher boom-bust-boom-bust years - and I've always secretly preferred the recessions because they've been the periods when people have behaved a lot less stupidly than they normally do. For the past decade or more I've seen the general population behave very stupidly like they've never done before. It's been frightening.
Repossession Repossession Repossession
Bursting the House Price Bubble
UK borrowing is worst in 10 years.
UK sees decline in factory output.
Bleak prospects for UK job market.
Human beings are f*c*ing morons aren't they?
You see, I've lived through recession after recession through the Thatcher boom-bust-boom-bust years - and I've always secretly preferred the recessions because they've been the periods when people have behaved a lot less stupidly than they normally do. For the past decade or more I've seen the general population behave very stupidly like they've never done before. It's been frightening.
Repossession Repossession Repossession
Bursting the House Price Bubble
UK borrowing is worst in 10 years.
UK sees decline in factory output.
Bleak prospects for UK job market.
Costs set to rule out register of fingerprints
They've already quietly given up on iris scans. Could it be that it's sllllllloooooowwwwly dawnin on them that finger printing and iris scanning every last individual in the country is going to prove a vastly expensive, awkward, and difficult thing to achieve?
Nah, can't be - that would presume a certain level of intelligence and common sense which Governments throughout history have never had.
Costs set to rule out register of fingerprints
Nah, can't be - that would presume a certain level of intelligence and common sense which Governments throughout history have never had.
Costs set to rule out register of fingerprints
Watchng 'Space 1999'
I always think:
'With all those polyester costumes and all that white plastic furniture they're surrounded by - don't they get constant shocks from static electricity?'
Space 1999
'With all those polyester costumes and all that white plastic furniture they're surrounded by - don't they get constant shocks from static electricity?'
Space 1999
Torchwood - season 2
Oh. Darn – and it started out so promising too. What with the immoral Captain Spike John making his first appearance and bringing a badly needed bit of life and humour to the proceedings. Not that that story didn't have it's faults – the biggest one being...
-Look, if you were going out with someone you totally knew was a complete and utter sociopathic rogue who was very likely to kill you at some point in the future – would you do the sensible thing and just get yourself out of the relationship altogether – or would you have the where-with-all to put in place a ridiculously over-complicated plan for revenge that would spring into operation in the event of your death? And if you had the brains to do that – why not go that extra mile and put in place a scheme – where the psychopath boyfriend doesn't manage to kill you in the first place?
But that's just a quibble.
Here's another: How long had Jack been away? I got the distinct impression that after that major altercation between the Doctor and the Master and the Tocoflane alternate time line got reset – only days had passed and after that the Doctor just popped him back in Cardiff only hours or a couple of days at most after Jack had left. But here they're behaving like he's been gone – what? Weeks? Months? A year? No one's actually said. Why can't they match up Torchwood storylines with the Doctor Who ones better than this - the creative staff all work in the same building after all.
Another quibble: After the climatic finale of Torchwood's last season's finale that had hundreds(?) of the population of Cardiff lying dead in the streets and the body of a giant demon monster to dispose of... I mean in this country you can't have a car accident anywhere without people covering the site with flowers and sympathy cards and other tributes. Yet in Cardiff - there's nothing. Life is back to normal. What with all those unworldly strange things going on week in - week out Cardiff seems way too normally normal if you ask me.
Now then, these past two episodes...
Sleeper.
Now. This is where my goat started getting got.
This is a story about a woman who discovers - much to her chagrin and distress that she's not a rather dull ordinary normal person at all - but in reality a super warrior from another planet altogether. The crux being that either her programming is far, far too good and made her all far too 'human' – or else she's a deeply wet space alien creature that finds being a housewife-y housewife in Cardiff far more personally fulfilling than being a kick-ass super warrior. Honestly. Can you ever imagine Daleks fancying themselves as stay-at-home housewives – or wanting low grade careers in the service industry?
Now I don't know about you – but one of the main reasons I watch sci-fi and fantasy stuff is that I find ordinary life quite dull, dull, dull. I watch sci-fi for the escapism. But here we're being directly told – by a sci-fi writer no less - that being Anthea Turner is more preferable thing to being - say, Predator. Excuse me if I remain totally unconvinced by that assertion. [Short pause to enjoy a mental image of “Anthea Turner vs. Predator” - the movie.]
Also – intergalactic terrorists? Oh what – yet another analogy to current world events? Again? Bored now.
To the Last Man.
Wasn't this just a slight rehash of that story in that episode last season where a plane full of people re-appears out of the Rift – all 'Out of Time' (in that case the 1940s) and one of the Torchwood staff falls in love with one of them?
But at the end though it all seemed rather slight and inconsequential – a bit of rumbling sound effects and some shaky cam of extras running about screaming having to stand in for the 'end of the world'. Particularly with that tired old sci-fi cliche the 'reset button'.
I dunno - it had 'filler' written all over it. But at least everyone isn't all doom-laden and crying all over the place like they were constantly doing last year.
-Look, if you were going out with someone you totally knew was a complete and utter sociopathic rogue who was very likely to kill you at some point in the future – would you do the sensible thing and just get yourself out of the relationship altogether – or would you have the where-with-all to put in place a ridiculously over-complicated plan for revenge that would spring into operation in the event of your death? And if you had the brains to do that – why not go that extra mile and put in place a scheme – where the psychopath boyfriend doesn't manage to kill you in the first place?
But that's just a quibble.
Here's another: How long had Jack been away? I got the distinct impression that after that major altercation between the Doctor and the Master and the Tocoflane alternate time line got reset – only days had passed and after that the Doctor just popped him back in Cardiff only hours or a couple of days at most after Jack had left. But here they're behaving like he's been gone – what? Weeks? Months? A year? No one's actually said. Why can't they match up Torchwood storylines with the Doctor Who ones better than this - the creative staff all work in the same building after all.
Another quibble: After the climatic finale of Torchwood's last season's finale that had hundreds(?) of the population of Cardiff lying dead in the streets and the body of a giant demon monster to dispose of... I mean in this country you can't have a car accident anywhere without people covering the site with flowers and sympathy cards and other tributes. Yet in Cardiff - there's nothing. Life is back to normal. What with all those unworldly strange things going on week in - week out Cardiff seems way too normally normal if you ask me.
Now then, these past two episodes...
Sleeper.
Now. This is where my goat started getting got.
This is a story about a woman who discovers - much to her chagrin and distress that she's not a rather dull ordinary normal person at all - but in reality a super warrior from another planet altogether. The crux being that either her programming is far, far too good and made her all far too 'human' – or else she's a deeply wet space alien creature that finds being a housewife-y housewife in Cardiff far more personally fulfilling than being a kick-ass super warrior. Honestly. Can you ever imagine Daleks fancying themselves as stay-at-home housewives – or wanting low grade careers in the service industry?
Now I don't know about you – but one of the main reasons I watch sci-fi and fantasy stuff is that I find ordinary life quite dull, dull, dull. I watch sci-fi for the escapism. But here we're being directly told – by a sci-fi writer no less - that being Anthea Turner is more preferable thing to being - say, Predator. Excuse me if I remain totally unconvinced by that assertion. [Short pause to enjoy a mental image of “Anthea Turner vs. Predator” - the movie.]
Also – intergalactic terrorists? Oh what – yet another analogy to current world events? Again? Bored now.
To the Last Man.
Wasn't this just a slight rehash of that story in that episode last season where a plane full of people re-appears out of the Rift – all 'Out of Time' (in that case the 1940s) and one of the Torchwood staff falls in love with one of them?
But at the end though it all seemed rather slight and inconsequential – a bit of rumbling sound effects and some shaky cam of extras running about screaming having to stand in for the 'end of the world'. Particularly with that tired old sci-fi cliche the 'reset button'.
I dunno - it had 'filler' written all over it. But at least everyone isn't all doom-laden and crying all over the place like they were constantly doing last year.
Foals: Why it's creativity, not fame, that interests them - Features, Music - Independent.co.uk
Why it's Yannis - not so much their music that interests me.
Let’s call a ceasefire in the ‘war on obesity’
Of course if the Govt. was genuinely interested in Nation eating a healthy diet - they'd subsidise organic farmers so their food was much cheaper to buy - they'd tax salt and sugar - they'd ban hydrogenated fats in the preparation of food. They'd refuse to allow each supermarket to label their own foods... they'd stop their foolish idea of forcing single parents into work so they can stay at home and cook for their children - going on from this they'd put a limit on working hours by law -so people will have the time to cook for themselves (Well, in theory at least) rather than having to rely on ready meals from the supermarket or take aways or eating out.
Instead they're just weighing school children which will stigmatise them even further, and guilt tripping the parents.
and
ignoring anything and everything the supermarkets and food producers do - because mmmm, who do you think helps contribute to their party funds?
Let’s call a ceasefire in the ‘war on obesity’ | spiked
Instead they're just weighing school children which will stigmatise them even further, and guilt tripping the parents.
and
ignoring anything and everything the supermarkets and food producers do - because mmmm, who do you think helps contribute to their party funds?
Let’s call a ceasefire in the ‘war on obesity’ | spiked
Woody « Flickr Blog
Dammit - I had been at home in worthing this past week - I could've had a chance of having a photo on the flickr blog. Hurrruphf. Instead I've been taking pictures of cakey-things and Kevin's sock-trauma.
Woody « Flickr Blog
Woody « Flickr Blog
No student loan without ID card, says government
Mmmmm. So much for a 'voluntary' card.
No student loan without ID card, says government | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics
No student loan without ID card, says government | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics
Worthing beach washed up wood
Rethink What You Drink
Exactly the sort of thing I've thought for years. Bottled water is such a complete con.
Rethink What You Drink: What You Can Do | The Environment | Reader's Digest
Rethink What You Drink: What You Can Do | The Environment | Reader's Digest
Yahoo! sucks
and it knows it now.
Let me when and if Yahoo ever manage to come up with something that isn't either a copy of some other company's idea:
Yahoo search = google
yahoo mail = hotmail
Yahoo Auctions = ebay
Yahoo 360 = myspace/facebook/blogger.
premium music = itunes or napster or whatever.
or else something they've bought up and made a lot worse like Yahoo groups.
It's always creeped me out that it's been trying so hard to BE the whole internet - instead of trying to do one or a small range of things very well - it's set on trying to do a bit of everything but being very mediocre at it all.
Let me when and if Yahoo ever manage to come up with something that isn't either a copy of some other company's idea:
Yahoo search = google
yahoo mail = hotmail
Yahoo Auctions = ebay
Yahoo 360 = myspace/facebook/blogger.
premium music = itunes or napster or whatever.
or else something they've bought up and made a lot worse like Yahoo groups.
It's always creeped me out that it's been trying so hard to BE the whole internet - instead of trying to do one or a small range of things very well - it's set on trying to do a bit of everything but being very mediocre at it all.
Cloverfield - a sort of spoiler-ish run down
Mmmmm - this isn't the version of the movie I saw [thanks for that link Rakka]... But it's similar enough to make me wonder if it's a whole alternative edit. Or more likely it's someone making up their own film from the trailer and on-line bits and pieces. In which case there are a few ideas in there that are better than the film...
Here's a proper spoiler from the Chicago Tribute.
Here's another.
A negative - but very sensible review.
JJ Abrams "Cloverfield" -- A String of Tired Movie Cliches Looking For A Place To Land.
Some Thing Has Found Us
JJ's viral diary.
Here's a proper spoiler from the Chicago Tribute.
Here's another.
A negative - but very sensible review.
JJ Abrams "Cloverfield" -- A String of Tired Movie Cliches Looking For A Place To Land.
Some Thing Has Found Us
JJ's viral diary.
Insurance: Hospital Was Filmed Dumping Homeless Paraplegic On Street, Driving Off
I'm sure America likes to pride it's self that it's not at all like Nazi Germany.
Insurance: Hospital Was Filmed Dumping Homeless Paraplegic On Street, Driving Off
Insurance: Hospital Was Filmed Dumping Homeless Paraplegic On Street, Driving Off
The 5 most annoying programs on your PC - Download Squad
I've hated Acrobat Reader for years. Might give this foxit a try.
'Big climate impact' on UK coasts - yeah, tell me about it
The last few days here in my high rise flat have been really bad.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Big climate impact' on UK coasts
(oooh you can upload videos now... how cool is blogger these days? I remember back when you couldn't have comments - let alone pictures - which was two of the main reasons I didn't use it much.)
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Big climate impact' on UK coasts
(oooh you can upload videos now... how cool is blogger these days? I remember back when you couldn't have comments - let alone pictures - which was two of the main reasons I didn't use it much.)
I am one of those 1 in 6
I haven't been to the dentist in ...decades now. It doesn't help that I'm living in a area with a high elderly population who have a stranglehold on what few (and constantly gradually diminishing) NHS places that there are.
BBC NEWS | Health | Dentist shortage hits 'millions'
But I see it all as part of a larger picture - we're living in a weird world these days - a 'all fur coat and no knickers' society. Things on the surface are looking great - ask any Labour politician and they can run off a ream of statistics saying how absolutely great everything is. I know I just caught a bit of Prime Minister's Question Time and see Gordon Brown do it. But it's a thin pretty veneer covering over a deep rot.
Oh look - at the unintentional dental puns there.
BBC NEWS | Health | Dentist shortage hits 'millions'
But I see it all as part of a larger picture - we're living in a weird world these days - a 'all fur coat and no knickers' society. Things on the surface are looking great - ask any Labour politician and they can run off a ream of statistics saying how absolutely great everything is. I know I just caught a bit of Prime Minister's Question Time and see Gordon Brown do it. But it's a thin pretty veneer covering over a deep rot.
Oh look - at the unintentional dental puns there.
more on chipping prisoners
You know - I'll bet MPs are exactly the sort of gullible goons that reply to spam - "oooh penny stocks I'll get my broker on that, ooooh herbal penis enlargement pills - some of them, ooooh I'll just update this exec. this website wants to install, oooh this tech company promises to solve immigration, benefit fraud cheats and terrorism with a database and ID card, ooooh lets tag prisoners, oooh, this lady wants to send me pictures of herself, oooh a NH computer will be fantastic..."
Tag-a-lag: Chip implants mooted for UK prisoners | The Register
Tag-a-lag: Chip implants mooted for UK prisoners | The Register
Is anyone watching...
Big Brother Celebrity Hijack this year? No? No - me neither. But then I'd already come to the conclusion that this generation of 20 year olds just aren't very interesting. Being so young they've nothing to talk about - except for their future plans, dreams and schemes (yawn).
WTF?
For a while now I've had this starter idea for a sci-fi story - where in the 'day-after-tomorrow' future - the country will be so over-crowded there would be state-imposed limits have been put on who can be out and about and who can't, and even how much time they're allowed outside. So every time someone wants to go out - they have to swipe their id card in a reader inside their front door - to be granted permission to go out - once outside their ID card starts a whole automatic process where their every last movement is tracked and recorded by CCTV and card readers etc.
This is based on already existing proposals for cars - so it's only a short hop from there to monitoring people.
Then I read this:
So now I'll have to update my idea and replace ID cards with chip implants.
Of course if they do get away with this for prisoners - next off they'll probably go on to the next step - the 'Fortress' concept - where the RFID chip will come with an explosive device and if any 'prisoner' strays anywhere they shouldn't. BOOM!
This'll all probably happen too - y'know, to keep us all safe from crime and terrorists and paedophiles and bird flu and global warming etc.
This is based on already existing proposals for cars - so it's only a short hop from there to monitoring people.
Then I read this:
Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.
So now I'll have to update my idea and replace ID cards with chip implants.
Of course if they do get away with this for prisoners - next off they'll probably go on to the next step - the 'Fortress' concept - where the RFID chip will come with an explosive device and if any 'prisoner' strays anywhere they shouldn't. BOOM!
This'll all probably happen too - y'know, to keep us all safe from crime and terrorists and paedophiles and bird flu and global warming etc.
iriver handwriting-friendly e-book / tablet?
Errrr... but why does it have to have lines on it? I never understood why they have lines on the palm memos program. I can't stand lined writing paper myself.
iriver prepping handwriting-friendly e-book / tablet? - Engadget
iriver prepping handwriting-friendly e-book / tablet? - Engadget
JJ Abrams mystery box
Ah, so now I get it. (Why 'Lost' is so infuriating. Why the end of 'Alias' was so bad. Why 'Cloverfield' has so much viral marketing.)
I was having myself a quick trawl around the internets looking for more Cloverfield gubbings and found a link to this TED lecture from J J Abrams.
Go and watch it before you read the rest of this...
Now, I have a big problem with JJ and his blessed mystery box. Because his whole theory only works by supposing that the mystery of the story is always far greater than the end solution. Which is fine – up to a point. Certainly if you're a writer – who can never stop writing. But in his case - it's a form of laziness, a lame excuse – he's certainly got the goods as far as creating mysteries go but he just can't manage to go that extra mile to provide a good satisfying conclusions to his work. (Have you seen the finale to Alias?) He's in far too much of a hurry to get on to his next mystery box. I'll bet he never finishes any script or any treatment he does. I get the impression he couldn't even be bothered – I think he probably leaves that stuff for his janitor, or his cleaning lady, or the pizza delivery boy – just any passing stranger to write the last pages for him. Which could explain why they're usually so painfully rubbish.
'Cloverfield' Release Will Be Test of Online Hype
Now the mystery box as part of on-line marketing tool, as inter-active game, etc. Which is all very fascinating - it's a really nice idea and I can see how this approach might be fine for providing grist to the obsessive fanboy's mill – as they trawl the internet trying to find various clues... but the problem there is at the end of it all - there is emphatically NO worthwhile end solution to be had. It is bound to always end in some disappointment, the over-teasing and the over-hyping makes sure of that.
I remember a wildlife documentary that was all about grey squirrels and featured how intelligent and agile they were. Showing them grabbing food from a bird table in a garden which the experimenters made increasingly difficult to get to - with ever more complicated obstacles. The thrill was seeing how the squirrel managed to negotiate everything. But there always came a point where the squirrel just stopped coming. The effort required to get to the peanuts just wasn't worth it any more. And that's what I feel about watching 'Lost'. I know a lot of the audience stopped coming to the table a long time back. And if people do totally get the whole mystery box concept completely - they're gong to realise their own ideas, theories, storylines are going to be far superior than whatever J J can come up with -and he's going to be out of a job.
I was having myself a quick trawl around the internets looking for more Cloverfield gubbings and found a link to this TED lecture from J J Abrams.
Go and watch it before you read the rest of this...
Now, I have a big problem with JJ and his blessed mystery box. Because his whole theory only works by supposing that the mystery of the story is always far greater than the end solution. Which is fine – up to a point. Certainly if you're a writer – who can never stop writing. But in his case - it's a form of laziness, a lame excuse – he's certainly got the goods as far as creating mysteries go but he just can't manage to go that extra mile to provide a good satisfying conclusions to his work. (Have you seen the finale to Alias?) He's in far too much of a hurry to get on to his next mystery box. I'll bet he never finishes any script or any treatment he does. I get the impression he couldn't even be bothered – I think he probably leaves that stuff for his janitor, or his cleaning lady, or the pizza delivery boy – just any passing stranger to write the last pages for him. Which could explain why they're usually so painfully rubbish.
'Cloverfield' Release Will Be Test of Online Hype
Now the mystery box as part of on-line marketing tool, as inter-active game, etc. Which is all very fascinating - it's a really nice idea and I can see how this approach might be fine for providing grist to the obsessive fanboy's mill – as they trawl the internet trying to find various clues... but the problem there is at the end of it all - there is emphatically NO worthwhile end solution to be had. It is bound to always end in some disappointment, the over-teasing and the over-hyping makes sure of that.
I remember a wildlife documentary that was all about grey squirrels and featured how intelligent and agile they were. Showing them grabbing food from a bird table in a garden which the experimenters made increasingly difficult to get to - with ever more complicated obstacles. The thrill was seeing how the squirrel managed to negotiate everything. But there always came a point where the squirrel just stopped coming. The effort required to get to the peanuts just wasn't worth it any more. And that's what I feel about watching 'Lost'. I know a lot of the audience stopped coming to the table a long time back. And if people do totally get the whole mystery box concept completely - they're gong to realise their own ideas, theories, storylines are going to be far superior than whatever J J can come up with -and he's going to be out of a job.
Cloverfield - a preview
Cloverfield - preview
If anyone in the US sees this film (it opens on the 18th) can they email me spoilers and a synopsis immediately afterwards please?
Because - well, I've come to a point where I'm getting over-tired of all teasers and the trailers and the 'never-being-given-a-straight-answer-ness of it all. They've started to overdo it a bit now. There's all sorts of stuff on the web, a soft-drink site -Slusho (and they even had a whole 'product' placement thing going on in the last few episodes of 'Heroes'. All the main characters have their own Myspace profiles... and it would be great (maybe) if it wasn't all so ultimately shallow. Because it's there to do the one simple job after the movie is out -it comes to an abrupt halt. It ends because no one is making money out of it anymore. [Maybe that's where 'fanfic' takes over I guess.]
Mmmmm I'm pondering now - Cloverfield has spent a lot of effort in their viral marketing but it's really only for their home market... trying to generate a 'must-see' vibe. But once the films out on release - the cat's out of the bag. The film won't be out in the UK for months afterward (because we're in 'Europe' they have to translate the movie and put subtitles on... oh wait - they don't have to do any of that for us... they just release films later over here because... because... they can.) are they going to carry on with the viral marketing for here? Or will they just not bother - figuring that if lots of Americans saw it - we'll just flock to see it too? Being the good little sheep that we are.
If anyone in the US sees this film (it opens on the 18th) can they email me spoilers and a synopsis immediately afterwards please?
Because - well, I've come to a point where I'm getting over-tired of all teasers and the trailers and the 'never-being-given-a-straight-answer-ness of it all. They've started to overdo it a bit now. There's all sorts of stuff on the web, a soft-drink site -Slusho (and they even had a whole 'product' placement thing going on in the last few episodes of 'Heroes'. All the main characters have their own Myspace profiles... and it would be great (maybe) if it wasn't all so ultimately shallow. Because it's there to do the one simple job after the movie is out -it comes to an abrupt halt. It ends because no one is making money out of it anymore. [Maybe that's where 'fanfic' takes over I guess.]
Mmmmm I'm pondering now - Cloverfield has spent a lot of effort in their viral marketing but it's really only for their home market... trying to generate a 'must-see' vibe. But once the films out on release - the cat's out of the bag. The film won't be out in the UK for months afterward (because we're in 'Europe' they have to translate the movie and put subtitles on... oh wait - they don't have to do any of that for us... they just release films later over here because... because... they can.) are they going to carry on with the viral marketing for here? Or will they just not bother - figuring that if lots of Americans saw it - we'll just flock to see it too? Being the good little sheep that we are.
DAY WATCH
So tonight my bf was talking about how he had started reading these books that he was now all excited about - called Daywatch by Sergey Lukyanenko. And as he went through the basic plot it slowly dawned on me that I had seen the movie of Nightwatch - the first book in the trilogy on TV only the other week. It transpires the follow up movie - the second in a trilogy was only released last year in October. Damn it - I've got lots of catching up to do now. Trying to get the movie for him -sigh. Stuff like that.
DAY WATCH
DAY WATCH
linky links for new Torchwood (starts Wednesday) and new Lost (-starts - who knows - whenever)
"...Torchwood fans should notice a change in tone this week. When Davies and his team looked back on series one, they decided it was too angst-ridden. ‘I think that was us in the office, being in such a rush to make it that we were projecting our worries onto the screen,’ Davies says, laughing."
Certainly - a lot less of the crying on Torchwood would be very welcome, because it was seriously getting on my tits.
I'm-a looking forward to seeing James Marsters giving his first on-screen male-on-male kiss. Whay-hey.
Here's a brief rundown of the Torchwood characters for you:
- Captain Jack – smug, omni-sexual.
- Gwen – pouty and constantly on the edge of tears. The other characters are constantly informing us how 'special' she is. Yet the only thing she seems genuinely good at is being pouty and being constantly on the edge of tears.
- Toshiko – geeky, dull, constantly on the edge of tears.
- Owen – creepy looking, arrogant, laddishly laddish, Complete wanker. And why has he got no lips? Whatever happened to his lips? There should be a story explaining where his lips disappeared to.
- Ianto – dreary, wears a suit.
Damon Lindelof, Co-Creator and Executive Producer of Lost - explains why he writes (it's to stop him becoming a pathological liar apparently) but totally fails to explain why he can never bring any of his stories to a satisfyingly conclusion that neatly ties up all the loose ends he also constantly generates.
Also -am I the only one that finds it ironic that Lost - which has been artificially dragged out and out for so long by being vastly over-written and over-padded should have had it's already pre-planned short new season even more shortened by a writers strike?
Michael Emerson interview which gives nothing away. Is Ben evil - or is he good? and who even cares anymore?
Argh - dammit Lost writers - will you just stop teasing us and dragging the story out - everyone lost interest years ago. Just tell us how it ends - now - before you get taken off the air and we'll never get to know.
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