Pull!

"I'm more worried that they would be trigger hesitant..." Oh, good. I can't tell you how much better that makes me feel, knowing that there are psychological programs in place encouraging people to shoot down airliners.

Slow week

ATI screams and threatens press in pale shadow of Bosnian war

Sounds about right to me. I did go away with the aforementioned T-shirt and a fondness for white beer, so it wasn't a total waste of everybody's time, effort and money or anything.

Epiphany

Things I Once Did Scorn But Now Embrace Or At Least Accept:

Circus training
Shop-bought coffee in takeaway cups
The Microsoft Corporation
Owning more than one pair of shoes
Starbucks
The importance of personal grooming
Owning less than three cars
Allotment gardening
Breakdown cover
Shaving daily
The notion that doing a university degree may not be all that beneficial
Comics
Air travel as tedium

In related news, this really would appear to be long, dark teatime of the soul. I've suddenly realised why I haven't missed television all that much since I became distracted over the course of last year is because most of it is utter, utter shit. I've also rediscovered the curse of being sober with nothing to do: my mind works upon itself. The effect becomes more disturbing and the results more worthless with every time this occurs.

See? Much more of this and I'll have to hit the whisky before the voices overwhelm me and I start writing disturbing letters to minor celebrities, or talking in the third person.

Chrissy: Fred Astaire is like your grandad, but with rhythm
Neil: i think you proved humans can communicate by emoticons alone
Kieron: AintItFatFacedAmericansInTheirBasements

That's pretty much been my day. Pathetic, really.

Theya Culpa

I was all set to rant - in a low-key, self-deprecating and ultimately useless fashion, admittedly - about how Hollywood repeatedly throws its toys out of the pram rather than admit that:

(a) Entertainment has developed to the point where there are plenty of alternatives to watching films, no matter how big the explosions are, and thus movies are inevitably going to perform less well. See also: marketing projections the RIAA won't ever talk about.
(b) Most modern films suck.

However, I can't because they're absolutely right on this one. They're just pissed off because the word gets out straight away. Dammit.

The Verdict Was Mail Fraud

You may remember him from such films as these. I'm still quite scared that films like this are produced in the post-McLure era. I mean, Havana Nights?

This means war

Most pathetic advertising slogan ever:
BF1942: Secret Weapons of World War II
"So secret you don't know they exist - UNTIL YOU'RE DEAD"

So that's where the copywriters went when Dolph Lundgren gave up "acting".

It is my belief that there is a woman outside looking for her cat, which is called Portia. If I am mistaken, then there is a deranged harpy wandering the streets emitting piping ullulations with little regard for people who might, in fact, be trying to sleep.

It would help if I knew which was true, as it would mean I could start working on the defence case now rather than having to wing it when the police arrive.

Shut your mouth

Bring it!

Brave new world

Up until now, I have blindy accepted the mantra that all things metallic silver (or better yet, brushed aluminium) were the pinnacle of human desire. If this happened to be garnished with blue lights, then it becomes so desireable as to be almost fundamentally blasphemous.

However... I looked up from my bed this morning and noted two PC's of differing sizes, both silver with blue lights. The laptop on one of them was also silver with blue lights. Prominent amid the litter on top of the rest of the desk was a USB drive (silver) Mp3 player (silver, blue screen) , two mobile phones (champagne beige/silver, blue illumination) and a Space Pen.

I am surprised to note that this was enormously creepy. It put me in mind of that bit in Superman II when the harriden sister is transformed into a robot - silver things massing around until they overwhelm you. Definitely time for a bit more throw-me-down furniture, methinks - even that smell will be an improvement.

Richard now has a site and everything. It's very good.

Gaze, despair

All hail dong_resin:

I think we should arm gay teenagers.
I'm not sure what that would lead to, exactly, but it seems like a good experiment.

and:

Should I really be blacklisted from someone's home simply because I told them "Sylvia Plath was a better cook"?

OK, that's quite odd. All external sources ignore the last post, yet it appears here. Is it secret, or merely my bodging the Blogger code?

Let's see.

There's the rub

Something weird I feel compelled to record: I started dreaming again. This is all the more notable for the fact I hadn't noticed that I'd stopped. The last two days I've woken up from a series of bizarre setpieces, invariably involving people from work engaged in various implausible activities on the sets of well-known film, accompanied by random items from the pit of my childhood memory, and thought hell, it's ages since that happened. Odd. This revelation arrives with the first week of straight drinking I've had for months, thus suggesting my subconscious mind is alcoholic. Which explains quite a lot.

Also, because I'm unaccustomed to having stuff on the internet that's personally relevant: why Kieron likes dancing. My analysis, alas, runs: "that was good. Let's do it again."

Oh yeah, hi Alec. Hope you had a good time in the States. Shame on you for catching up by looking at this.

Freeman on film

Hmmm. Oddly, I feel I should be overcome with horror at the thought, but I'm not - I think it'd make a great film. They'd have to do extremely well to make it a very good one, which of course they're not - it'll get farmed out to some talentless music-video idiot, will star Jason Biggs as Gordon and will be yet another God-awful exercise in Hollywood failing to understand gaming - but the plot, cheesy though it is, is plenty good enough. Let's not forget, there's the hallowed company of Lara Croft:Tomb Raider, or Resident Evil in the Hollywood annals.

However... both of those films traded heavily on their female stars and raked in a lot of sweaty and acrid-scented cash from immature menfolk. Gordon, bless 'im, isn't exactly a sex symbol, and while the notion of his part being assayed by, say, George Clooney would correct this - and would make it a bloody good film - it's not all that likely, particularly as his post-Solaris career plan is probably headed with NO MORE SCI-FI, SWEET JESUS NO scrawled in blood-red ink. I digress. Anyway, if they (a) avoid casting whatsername from the sequel (a notion I regret even as I type it, as the film won't come out before HL2 and thus my opinion of her will have changed dramatically by them, but, hey, stream of conciousness and all that and actually gosh if that's the case I don't need punctuation ahaha God that's going to annoy me when I read it back again I wonder if I'll actually proof it?) (b) cast someone who can actually act - let's pretend George, or Edward Norton for Gordon, and.... oh, Tommy Lee Jones as the G-man, that'll get some geek cred. Furthermore, they shouldn't neglect (c) having a decent special effects budget. In fact, something akin to Men in Black would go down quite nicely, actually, only with a hefty dose of Alien-style creeping horror.

Actually, yeah. Alien. That's the stuff. Ignore everything I've just written, and think Alien, with a load more weapons, a huge special effects budget, and some properly innovative camera work. Hell, you could even have Lance Henrikssen as Gordon; look at the images (ignoring the airbrushed beauty of the HL2 renders) and there's even a distinct resemblance. Also starring: Tommy Lee Jones as the G-Man, Guy Pierce as Barney, and Christopher Lee, Stan Lee, CliffyB, Derek Smart, Dave McCarthy, Kieron Gillen, Gabe Newell and Simon Byron et al cameoing as Doomed Scientists #64 through #4,603.

Okay, I am quite hung over. But I still think it's doable. If only as a back-page in-joke.

I'm going to go away now.

Good little runner


BERLIN (Reuters) - German customs unwittingly auctioned a car containing 10 kgs (22 lbs) of cocaine, the Customs Investigation Authority (ZFA) in the northern city of Hamburg says.

The Chevrolet estate was originally imported from Mexico and impounded in 1997 after an X-ray revealed it was carrying 54 kgs (120 lbs) of the drug. But that wasn't all. "The software used to scan the car in 1997 was not sophisticated enough to pick up the other 10 kilograms," said Hamburg ZFA spokesman Robert Duetsch on Tuesday. The car sat in storage until being auctioned off last month, whereupon the new owner discovered 11 bags of the white powder stashed in the boot, each weighing around 900 grams.

The man immediately returned to customs with the drugs, which Duetsch said would have had a street value of some 500,000 euros in 1997.

(source)

Brain Food

Woohoo!

Game on

I think I'll spend more time in the games industry. It's fun in there. And I get to hang - if you'll excuse the expression - with implausibly-genitaled members of the clergy.

I'll also be spending more time at home, because the new place is - get this - nice. I no longer have to worry about filth, flatulence, and flatmates wandering around drunk or naked. Well, in truth all of the above are on the cards, but there's off-street parking and a balcony view, so it'll be fine.

Word out

My words go on a game box. I am now special. Or a publicity whore - there's some debate.