Archive for the ‘Comment’ Category
Windows7 Thoughts.
Well, Windows7 seems to be running quite well so far. Installation was super easy, and relatively quick too. I never had brought Vista myself, use it myself at work so the Windows7 layout seemed like a logical extension of Vista.
The new pinned taskbar is a nice feature where you can pin your most commonly used programs. It’s much better than the quick launch within the start menu of XP. Auto windows update is also a much smoother, easier experience too. Speed of the OS is surprising from these eyes. Compared to XP or Vista for that matter, Windows7 flies!
Compatibility with my exisiting software is all good so far. That said, I haven’t chucked a lot of my old legacy games on yet, that may be another story. Knock on wood.
Windows7.
So how did you go in your Windows7 Beta download adventure? Talk about fun just get a beta. Microsoft have really got to overestimate the demand on something like this. Do they use commodore 64’s for servers or something??
Well obviously not, but it’s a staggering thought about the amount of data transfered in such a short amount of time: 2.5 million downloads x 3 GB image = 7300 TB = 7.15 PB. In a 12 hour download session, that would require something like a 175 GB/s connection. Glad I’m not paying the bill!
Anyway. I’m off to install. Hopefully I see you on the other side from Windows7 land.
Living In The Nanny State.
Kevin Stalin????
Here in Australia we’ve had a new government for just over 12 months. Typically for a labor government they’ve done a rubbish job. They’ve taken a 20 billion plus budget surplus and put it into the red. Rudd has also fallen for what I call the “chicken little” trick. It’s the alarmist condition that the hippies of the World use to trick us into believing that the World is coming to an end. So now they are going to propose a carbon trading scheme. (Even though as a country we don’t pollute half as much as countries like China or America). And now the do-gooder state is going to place taxes on what they would class as “unhealthy foods”. These do-gooders won’t be happy until we’re all living in plastic bubbles locked away from the world. What a fun bunch…
Really they’ve got to be kidding. Some of these “unhealthy foods” include Vegemite, Blue Cheese and Jams because of there high salt & sugar levels. Talk about a nanny state. They want to control what we eat due to high salt and sugar contents, but things like McDonalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks are exempt. There’s something a bit wrong there isn’t it. Sounds like yet another dumb idea just like the proposed Internet filter.
Obviously Kevin Rudd loves the works of George Orwell. I remember what it was like living in a free an democratic country. Now the hippy communists and there politically correct agendas are filtering through into mainstream politics which means that for us, our lives are becoming controlled more and more. Gone are the days when Australia was a free country, where adults were allowed to make their own decisions about their lives. First there was the Internet filter, now they’re telling us what we can and can’t eat? Next you’ll find that Rudd will be monitoring all of our activities, institute a blanket curfew and execute dissidents. Looks like I’m in trouble. And you thought communism was dead!
Roger’s Favorite Movies Of 2008.
Enough with the stupid lists I hear you say! Okay, but one more. This time it’s my favorite movies of the year. Every year it seems to me that it gets harder and harder to pick 5 of my favorite movies. Not because there is so many good ones, but because there are so many BAD ones. Sadly were living in a World of sequels and terrible remakes because the movie studios are not wanting to take a risk and that’s a sad thing. Regardless, here are my top 5 films of the year. Happily you won’t find rubbish like: What Happens In Vegas, Love Guru, Zohan or Speed Racer, you’ll find films that are much, much better!
Roger’s Best Games Of 2008.
2008 was another big year for games. There were a lot of sequels (Resistance 2/Gears Of War 2) and spin offs, many overrated games (Spore/GTAIV) and many bad games too. 2008 though will be seen by these eyes as a year where some companies were willing to take a few risks, but the payoff for us the consumer was excellent. Here are my top games of 2008:
Roger’s Most Disappointing Games Of 2008.
Yesterday I went through my list of the worst games of the year. Now I’m going to focus on the most disappointing games of the year. While they are are from the worst seen this year, they are definitely not the best seen either. They may have had potential, but failed miserably for one reason or another.
Roger’s Worst Games Of 2008.
While this maybe a primarily personal blog, I still like to chuck a little bit of other content on it especially if I’m feeling creative. Games are just one of the things that I like to play in my personal time. BAH! Games I hear some of your say. Well, yes! 20 years ago games were just in there infancy, but as I’m one of the generation who grew up them when I was young they are as normal an entertainment past time as going to the movies is to an older person.
Being at the mature end of the gaming spectrum, I find that most games today are useless copies or re-hashes of previous games, after all if it ain’t broke don’t fix it hey? Sadly though a lot of creativity is missing from the games industry now just like the movie industry. But that doesn’t really matter as most of the target market are ritalin fuelled morons who accept mediocrity willingly. The vast amounts of money that are being spent on titles basically stifles any creative endevours on the whole, but occasionally an original one sneaks out on the market. Sadly is wasn’t many this year, just rehashes of older games with tarted up graphics primarily. Regardless, here are my top 5 worst, best & disappointing games of the year.
Lets start with the worst shall we?
I Have Tasted Evil…And Survived!
Long time no blog. Apart from a few decidedly individual movie reviews from when I was unwell, it’s been pretty quiet around here due to that culprit I like to call work. But I just wanted to take a moment out of my busy day to say. CRANBERRY JUICE IS REALLY, REALLY BAD!
In all my 31 years, I haven’t ever had the stuff and I still wish I hadn’t. What is it with Yanks and there penchant for rubbish? I’ve never knew what evil tastes like, but now I finally know!
Indiana Jones And That Crystal Thingy.
I sometimes wonder how a movie like Indiana Jones would have been accepted if it were released just a few years after the last film. 19 years have passed since Indiana Jones last rode into the sunset. Finally after getting those three little space films out of the way, George Lucas was able to focus on a new Indiana Jones film. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is the latest entry in the now quartet of films. As we know it had a very protracted and long development time to finally get into our Blu-Ray players. As anyone who enjoys a movie or two also knows, Indiana Jones has been derided by the general internet community for various reasons including the alien subplot, cheesy jokes and even for the participation of the movie nerd’s hero George Lucas. What happened? What happened in these last ten years for people to become so vitriolic towards certain films today? I can put it down to one thing alone. The Internet!
While communications technology has increased in the 19 years since that last film, it seems that moviegoer’s intelligence hasn’t. The Internet has seemingly made film reviewers of us all. And it seems in the majority it has made bad ones at that too. It seems today that reviewers, posters, forum users, website creators and the rest think they know better than professional film reviewers because if you read a lot of the Internet posts/babble on various movie related websites, they don’t have many nice things to say about the film. Simple fact of the matter is that they honestly don’t get it! Wannabe’s always try to take the high brow approach with every film thinking that they’re a Roger Ebert or a Richard Corliss. Perfect example is 300. It’s a film loved by the general movie fanboy community which generally means they’re in the under 25 pants on head retarded demographic. 300 is an awful, awful film and is a complete bastardization of the original story with no reverence to the events it relates to. Really, whats the point of making a historical film if it’s not accurate? 300 is a movie that caters to the lowest common denominator, but those wannabe’s love it because it “looks cool” with all that CGI and violence. To them it’s a dramatic film and it doesn’t require too much effort on the old brain.
This community shows how silly they really are. Last time I checked, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, is much the same. It uses a lot of CGI and doesn’t require much thinking, but it’s hated. Maybe its the lack of 300’s vague homosexual undertones that makes them hate Indy More? The aggregate scores on Rotten Tomatoes for 300 was 60% while Indiana Jones had a 76% certified fresh rating. So much for Internet reviewers knowing more than professional reviewers then! Why bring this up in a review? Well, it seems today that with Internet buzz and movie spoilers, a lot of movies don’t get the chance to be enjoyed by the average moviegoer unlike the last time Indiana Jones saw the inside of the movie theatre. These days, the average moviegoer won’t let themselves enjoy a film anymore because they think they need to criticize every film that comes out so they can babble on around a latte with their other wannabe film critic mates, instead of actually going to the movies to enjoy/hate a film. These days it’s just all pure judgment before actually seeing a film. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull isn’t the best film in the Indy series that’s for sure, but it’s certainly not as bad as what people have been saying. I think the biggest thing is that people just didn’t “get” it, they took it too seriously for what it really was: an homage to the cheesy science fiction “B” movies of the 50’s, just like the original Indy trilogy was an homage to the 30’s adventure serials of the day. No, they tried too take it more seriously than what it actually was, an Indiana Jones film. And for an Indiana Jones film, it does quite well on its own and does feel like an Indiana Jones film, and isn’t that what is important?
Considering this film has grossed over 300 million dollars in the U.S. there must have been something about it that worked, but I’ll still give a synopsis for the two people who haven’t seen it? It’s 1957. With the war over and those pesky Nazi’s defeated, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and his partner Mac (Ray Winstone) (who I would love to punch in the face he’s so annoying!) have been kidnapped this time by a group of Russians from the red army led by Col. Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) and taken to a secret government warehouse to retrieve something of value that Indy had recovered ten years before in Roswell, New Mexico. Obviously it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the object that they’re looking for is related to the alleged UFO crash in 1947. Forced to cooperate Indy finds what the Russians are seeking before using his skills in order to escape his captors in what is a very over the top and unrealistic sequence but it’s still a hell of a lot of fun. After all this is Indiana Jones film.
Because of his escape, Indy is put under suspicion by the FBI of working for the reds. Due to this suspicion, Indy is suspended by Barnett College, so Indy decides it would be a good idea to move on and decides to go to Europe. It’s at this point another new character, the awfully named Mutt Williams (Shia Labouf) enters on his motorbike and informs Indy that one of his oldest friends Professor Harold Oxley (John Hurt) and Mutt’s mother have been kidnapped and the only clue to there whereabouts and the whereabouts of the so called “crystal skull” is in a map that only Indy can decode. Utilizing his old trusty leather jacket, fedora and whip, Indy jets of with Mutt to South America in order to find the skull and solve the mystery.
I’m not going to go too deeply into the major plot points as not to spoil it for the people who haven’t seen it yet. But I will say that there are times in the film where it does become somewhat disjointed with over the top situations and some one dimensional characters. Even with those occasional missteps, it still tries its best to remain true to the Indiana Jones idiom of having fun, just like the originals did all those years ago. On the whole though, there are worse two hour diversions you could make.
Lewis Hamilton Is Champ…..maybe.
It’s early in the morning here and the F1 championship has been decided in quite exciting and controversial circumstances. I mentioned a while ago how I’m sick of committees deciding the results of races. Committees along with political correctness have made the world a worse place, not a better one. Considering how this race finished, it may happen again!
As F1 fans would know, Lewis only needed a fifth place to win it should Massa finish in first. That happened, but not without some scares. With about 6 laps to go, the rain came down, Lewis went in for rain tyres and then the rain stopped. Uh oh. Thanks to mother natures fickleness, Lewis was out of sorts as his tyres weren’t gripping. Vettel went past, Lewis went into sixth, a championship losing position.
This is where is gets interesting. With the championship lost, Lewis got fifth back when Jarno Trulli’s Timo Glocks car went 17 seconds slower on the last lap thanks to his not changing tyres, so a screw up on Toyota’s part handed the championship back to Hamilton as he passed Trulli Glock on the last turn!
So the question will most likely be asked, did the Toyota slow down deliberately or was it bad tyre choices? Methinks that a committee may have something to do in deciding this championship. I hope not, but they do have to justify themselves don’t they?
Oh, by the way. Channel 10. SCREW YOU! Why do you even deserve the rights to show F1 when you cut the telecast short to go to your rubbish 6am news service which no one watches, hosted by two muppets who have no personality, HUH?
