General Ramblings

BBC News - A distant Earth-like exoplanet 'could have life'

2010-09-30T23:07:00.000+01:00

BBC News - A distant Earth-like exoplanet 'could have life'

this is just really cool i find a planet 3 times the size of our own earth with water and all other kinds of stuff i just wish we had the sort of technology to get there and explore who knows what we could find

Castlevania - Lords of Shadows Demo - ps3

2010-09-30T22:23:00.000+01:00

it has felt like A while that I have been waiting to hear some real news about this game and get my hands onto it, the demo eventually came out today here are my impressions of it.

The Demo starts off with patrick stewart reading the back story now normally i would just read it and then ignore the rest but due to the simple fact that its patrick stewart reading it out makes me want to stop and listen to every syllable of the back story the game is set in the 11th century, but you do not play as Simon Belmont bit of a down there as he is the main character of most of the decent castlevania's

the Demo has a very familiar feel to anyone who has played games like god of war, where you go through the stages you try and do combo with your weapons with loads of weird monsters around you, it doesnt strike me as the most revolotionary games out there but the demo when i wask walking around killing some weird werewolves was quite fun then as i was getting deeper into the demo a talking horse came out of nowhere to talk to me, which just took me back thinking what on earths going on.... maybe its me not knowing the plot etc but it just seemed out of context in the demo, also then you have to ride this horse killing some small werewolves riding what looked like big werewolves it seemed ok.

in conclusion i will proberbly pick this game up when it gets a bit cheaper and i have completed the god of war games that i have backlogged to play

Heavy Rain - ps3

2010-09-28T02:15:00.000+01:00

I saw this the other day in my latest pre-owned shop for £20, id heard so many good things about this game but had waited till it hit the £20 mark before buying and started playing it on Wednesday, and completed my personal story today. however there was some big ass download before i was able to play it to allow move support which i guess this game could add a different dimension playing it with playstation move although I doubt I will buy move unless it become dirt cheap

the good thing about Heavy rain is that there are multiple endings for the players so it is the scenario that once you complete the game you do text / facebook/ twitter/ social network / or what other forms of communication you have with your freinds and ask them how they played the game and you laugh as you tell them indiana jones IV helped you when you hid a character in a fridge where as they tell you they did X Y and Z.

The Game is very different in a way to most other games I have ever played it is quite refreshing to have such a different game out there with multiple endings and a system that if a character doesn't do something in the right way you get the game over screen mearly the storyline changes to fit with your game I do get the impression that this game has its roots firmly in the point and click variety such as monkey island and broken sword but with a 2010 take on a much forgotten genre.

However I do fear that there is a limited replay value of the game, as having played it once I know who the murderer is and the twists and high and lows I experienced first time simply wont be replicated by replaying it, but that's probably down to the great plot that was crafted by the writers

I suppose if I was being critical I would say that some of the handling of the characters are a bit poor and stiff but as the game is more about cut-scenes and clues this does not really matter as much

In conclusion I would say definitely give this game a go perhaps dont pay full price for it but wait till it become a bit cheaper for you ( unless you have money to burn) but once you do get your hands on it dont read spoilers just enjoy it and play it naturally its the sort of game where there is no wrong answers, I wouldn't say this was my game of the year, most initiative game of the year definitely id give it 8.75/10

I finally get to play super Contra

2010-09-28T01:49:00.000+01:00

for ages on the internet I havee been seeing people play contra and super contra and have been looking for my copy over here in europe search Amazon and virtual console to no avail but hell the game looked fun i just figured it was super rare cue my amazement the other day when i was on the virtual console when i saw a game tittled Super Probotector: Alien Rebels and began thinking what on earth is this when i begun checking it on wikipedia i find out it was the european version of contra was called Probotector and the version i was looking for on the snes was called Super probotector: alien rebels. It makes me wonder what was going through the marketing departs min in the ''pal region'' when they decided to use this bizarre name all around the world it was called Contra with an add on I just cant understand why anyone would change that name and why they would use the name probotector i could just see the young me struggling to even say that name heaven help me writing it on a list to father Christmas,

anyway i have only played the game breifly and another thing we europeans got screwed over on is there is not cheat code to help us get more lives this game is already well known for its hard difficulty and you remove the one life line some beginners have heres a video of someone playing it for the first time with the 30 level cheat

but its rock hard i admit i have as much chance of completing this as I do waking up in the morning having both my girlfreind and Ezri Dax and Ace from doctor who wanting me with a winning lottery ticket for £1000000000000000000 , but it is fun

the Decline of IM's

2010-09-24T00:18:00.000+01:00

I remember years ago when i was at school all the rage was going on IM's every group of friends seemed to have the service they preferred some like myself liked msn others yahoo and then there were those people who thought they were smart by using trillian.

Its a shame today when ever I log on to msn there never seems to be any one online where as 5 or so years ago there would always be plenty of people now im amazed if i see 1 or 2 people, it seems sad in away that everyone just goes online to facebook chat these days which I have never really gotten on well with although I use it, I just feel it is very inferior to the alternatives, I guess it was not the fault of the social networks themselves but the companies for the IM who failed to evolve the product beyond the means of mealy talk but the whole social interaction and networking for doing stuff like sharing photos which kind of eventually spelt the downfall of the IM's.

I have recently downloaded AIM messenger which allows me to have a messenger client to talk over facebook which i guess in a way is a bit of a win. Maybe im just looking back at the whole era with some sort of rose tinted glasses like the SNES, but hell it was good and I am a bit sad that its gone

Match Of The Day

2010-09-21T22:38:00.000+01:00

Stan Collymore criticises match of the day

Earlier on today I found this article and i really think it has a lot of truths and is something that needs to be said about the so called flag ship show of football in Britain, but in its current state the show is not fit for purpose and that's why I and many other people I know have been leaving the MOTD viewer-ship to watch football highlights else where

First of all I need to say in my opinion the show is to stuff and dry for my liking, for example the pundits you normally have Hansen and Shearer waxing lyrical about matters football, yet how many of them have actually managed a club successfully ? the answer is 0 yes none of them yet week in week out where here were current managers are going wrong. what gives these pundits the knowledge to say how to organise successfully training and drills to make sure that errors are corrected. and as we are on pundits Hansen and Shearer one word that comes to mind when i see these two on tv DULL, they never say anything risky or controversial about how a team plays and just almost seem to tow a line

As well the pundits need to have more knowledge of who they are watching ok they cant be an all seeing and all knowing but there were times on match of the day and during the world cup where you hear people saying ' we dont know much about ben afra' or I didnt know Veron is still playing for Argentina its ridiculous that its such a narrow ill informed view to football and how its played on a global stage is an insult to the viewers

Another thing that is wrong with match of the day at the moment would have to be the running order and how they analyse as a charlton fan we haven't been on MOTD since we got relegated but i all to well remember the sheer annoyance of having to trall through the big 4's 20 mins of highlights to get to see 30 seconds of Charlton footage, then if a team out side of the big 4 beat a big 4 normally one of the first questions asked is ' so then what went wrong for Liverpool today then' which in that one question wipes out and devalues all the good work that the other team has done.

so what needs to happen is a new host of motd id hope james richardson would get a good look in as he always seems to do well dating back to the football italia days on channel 4 then add some people to the panel with a bit of experience and who aren't afraid to say something else, and chose which games you are going to show not about which team has the most fans but which is the best football match and try to make the highlights seem fair.

Video Game Review - Portotype - PS3

2010-09-21T22:13:00.000+01:00

So for 9 hours spread out over a couple of weeks I have been playing prototype and have completed it ( according to the games stats) all though thinking back it has felt much much longer than that.

So what this is a game where you go around a big city in which some zombie virus has been leaked and is turning the populace of this city zombie like, you play a man called Alex i think who has had the virus some how but has not turned him into a zombie but instead gives him super powers to give him hammer fists etc. the story line is pretty generic for many people who have see Zombie films in the past you can kind of guess what to expect.

however this game has been the most frustrating game that I have played this generation, with many a time my self wanting to drive my head into a wall for the sheer randomness of some of the stuff that was happening in the game. There are plenty examples of this sheer mind numbing aggravation that i experienced one of the main things that fucked me off would have to be what happens when you die instead of giving you full health from the last check point the game gives you what seems like 1/3 health, many times i was shouting at the screen i couldn't do this level with all my health bar what makes this game think i can do it with 1/3 of a bar !!!!!!!. so then you have a choice to try and battle on with 1/3 of a health bar or recharge your health bar by eating civilians however if you try this you run the risk of a soldier seeing you then all hell kicking off as he calls for 15 helicopters to hit you with missiles causing you to lose more health than you started with, and this is and all to common occurrence for my liking. This is not however my only problem with the game many a times i was doing missions in which i was helping the Army it seemed however one soldier sees me with a car above my head and bang i have helicopters from the same army im helping coming after me..... Also at times it feels that you are punished trying to build a clever strategy and all to often you will succeed more in this game if you just go in all guns blazing.

The story line is very basic and is not to fleshed out it seems in much details you normally get a 1 min cut scene before every mission to tell you why you are doing something and that's it, you can consume additional people round the map to flesh it up a bit but it still feels weak for my liking.

one thing I did like about this game however are the boss battles yes they were ridiculously hard and yes they were frustrating and had me shouting at the tv 'thats not fucking fear you ass clown' but it was like in the old days of playing video games were the bosses were really hard and you had to keep coming back for more punishment but when you do beat them you get A huge boost, its so much more refreshing than as it is in some games one crack at the boss you win, one boss in this game took me 40 mins to complete i reckon and if i only played the game for about 9 hours lol. of course i do feel they have increased the difficulty of the bosses to get away sometimes from the bland repetitive nature of the other missions in the game which are often easy and involve you ether catching someone or destroying someone

In conclusion I could think of worse ways to spend a couple of hours however this game has some huge irritations but it only cost me about £7 I think. the people who made the game said that if it sold well it would be a trilogy well a year has past since its been realised and I have heard nothing about potential sequels so who knows. if you liked spiderman web of shadows then give this a try or vice versa

id give this A 5/10

Need to catch up with your USSR history ?

2010-08-11T18:48:00.000+01:00

well some people have put it to the tune of Tertis enjoy

I write like Douglas Adams

2010-08-07T17:58:00.002+01:00

I write like
Douglas Adams

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Sliders seasons 1 + 2

2010-08-05T14:22:00.000+01:00

Sliders A tv show that i grew up with in my youth i remember watching it on bbc2 when they used to show scifi at like 6pm, i remember watching it and it was always sparking of my imagination, about what if's i suppose its kind of the reason i am a bit of an alternative history fan.

so when reviewing this series some of the early episodes are full of great ideas like what if the ussr invaded the usa and other things like that however if you think about most of them they are quite flawed but its the sort of show that you have to suspend some thinking but thats escapism for you jsut sit there and let them tell a story. however as the dvds go deep into series 2 you do begin to get some worlds were you do think what the fuck happened here to end up with this cause of events for example one world were the young dominate society. Also towards the end of season 2 we saw the creation and use of the Kromags...... an evil race evolved on another earth

the good points

well one of the main good points of this show for the first season or two is the sheer volume of ideas of things they could do yeah one or two of them are a bit crazy and off the wall but they were good and sure one or two of the epiosdes did make me think about things and what they would be like if......

another good point of the series are the charecters and especially how they play off each other the main one that i want to point out for being awesome is professor Maxamillian Arturo i just found this charecter brilliant and his reactions and everything are awesome and if you ask me sliders begun to lose its way when john rhys-davies left i just felt it created such a huge void in the show that they never recovered from,

also something that is fun is that its mainly episodic i can put any disc in the dvd player and hey presto i can jump into any episode no reall continuous viewing required

the bad points

There are some huge plot holes in these episodes that just scream what the fuck this is bull shit at you, and make your eyes roll and sometimes there are worlds that just make you have no interest, i always dread and shudder when I hear they are in a world were there are dinosaurs i am just not interested and these episodes can drag and drag.

Overall

its good escapist fun give it a try overall 8/10

Every Doctor Who villain since 1963 - as a spreadsheet and visualised | Television & radio | guardian.co.uk

2010-07-21T14:24:00.000+01:00

Every Doctor Who villain since 1963 - as a spreadsheet and visualised | Television & radio | guardian.co.uk

ok this is really cool it lets you see every doctor who villain in every episode since 1963 and against which doctor they appeared against

Assassin's Creed 2 - Review

2010-07-21T14:17:00.000+01:00

So for the past 2 weeks or so I have been playing this and yeah completed it the other day and can probably can get the Platinum ps3 trophy if i put the effort in and collect all the little feathers scattered about the map.

The Good Points

I really Enjoy the storyline of this game and found it interesting and am now am awaiting the 3rd instalment in this series, the game seems to have 2 story lines running in it the first being you are an Italian assassin named Ezio trying to achieve vengeance for your families death and uncovering the conspiracy that lead to their deaths, then there is the other storyline of you being a a man put back in time to help stop the templars and then there is some science fiction stuff along with that which i found interesting and solving number 16's mystery.

Also other things that I liked about this game are the scenes and views that you get of renaissance Italy look really amazing and are well created by the designers here. and the whole environment really adds to the game that takes you back to that era of history , also it is nice to see an era of history in games that hasn't really

The Bad Points

on of my main problems with this game is the controls the amount of times i shouted at the tv ''don't do that you idiot'' because of the control system also the aiming system as well it just really winds me up and feel it really subtracts from the game it really did wind me up and some mission I had to replay just because ezio would not jump and pull a leaver at a certain time.

I found the game really started off very slowly and for the first hour or so of playing this game i was wondering what the hell had i brought it was just boreing and dull i did stop for a few days due to the boreingness of the opening levels were you have to blend in with crowds and due to my impatience i just wanted to storm off and do some fun shit, maybe for the thrid game if they want to improve make that introductory tutorial hour that all games these days seems to have better for gods sake make it better.

Overall

once i got into this game i really did enjoy it the first hour or slow were really slow but once i passed through that intial hour or slow i became slowly immersed in the game and really enjoyed playing it, this is probably the perfect game for anyone with borderline OCD as there is just so much to collect and amass secret seals and codes which does mean you can get a lot out of the game if you care about such things. yeah so this can be a fun game i imagine its very divisive if you like it or not.

So I would give this game 7.5/10

AWESOME DOCTOR WHO RUMOURS ( potential spoilers)

2010-06-30T16:59:00.001+01:00

My series 5 review is coming soon dont worry but just thought id share this that there are rumours going round on the internet that for the Christmas special there is going to be a Christmas Carol them to the episode with doctors from the past of which one of the doctrs rumoured is sylvester McCoy Hurray best news all day, I just hope they go for him, the other names mentioned wer mcgann or tennant, i feel it would be to soon for tennant to come back to the series having only left recently and meh im just not a fan of mcgann, plus i can see Mccoys doctor working so well with matt smiths ,

to the doctor who team make this so

England World Cup

2010-06-30T00:54:00.000+01:00

Right so ive let the dust settle upon this before I give my reactions as often i may have said something from the heart that when i looked back upon may have been wrong or i regretted.

ok simply our world cup was awful from start to finish it was absolute pony, i think it all went definitively went down hill in everyone's minds the moment green spilled in that shot and that one spillage summed up englands entire world cup.

V USA - i thought in this match we started off well, was pleased when we went 1-0 up after 4 mins ( great work by heskey to set it up ) and i thought the game was going nicely along then we had Greens error which was bad and at a really shit time to happen right before the end of the first half, but the thing that was most disappointing is there was no response from the team in this match nothing

V Algeria - Awful i think its one of the worst england matches I have ever seen i cant remember a single chance or anything it was awful limp no creativity nothing you could have got as much excitement watching paint dry,

V Solvenia - i team that i call West brom of international football, well it was better than the Algeria came there were signs that the team was perhaps moving in the right directions but even still the lack of goals and chances were once again a worry, i think apart from the early goal there were no chances except rooney hitting the post.

V Germany - oh dear, if English players cant get hyped and really into an england germany match they dont deserve to play, the defence was awful, midfield was pathetic and our strikers were disgustingly bad, to surrender the match in such a way was detestable. my emotions in this match and after was just sheer exasperation.

in conclusion I dont want to see Lampard, Carrigher, Heskey, Wright-phillips, james, in an England Shirt ever again. I want us to start pushing our younger talent through the likes of jack rodwell will easily be a better player than Barry in the future. but what i do worry about is were is the next generation of strikers ? apart from Andy Caroll i can not really think of many decent young players who can play up front which is disgraceful.

We need to keep Capello as a manager he will know what to do I dont believe that there is a suitable manager that will be able to take over from him, but what the FA needs to do is to reorganize and rebuild there needs to be a thorough change in its structure to make it work not to worry as much about profits but to really get young players playing, some people say that perhaps we should copy how the dutch or Spanish to get young people through i dont agree with that I believe that we should create our own style drawing upon elements of these systems but not copying them

The Sabotuer - review - ps3

2010-06-09T22:09:00.000+01:00

What an drunk womanising foul-mouthed Irish man doing in Paris during the middle of the second world war when the germans have occupied paris, well this is what this game is trying to figure out in a GTA esq sandbox game,

When playing this game i was often left in two minds wondering is this game aimed at 15 year olds who just love watch things blowing up killing Nazi's with ott dialouge in the similar way to 50 cent blood in the sand, or if the developers of the game i trying to go in a definite tongue in cheek look and after completing this game you know what im still not sure, I want to believe that it is tounge in cheek in this game there are loads of stereotypes that you could expect to find in any world war 2 movie, such as the british upper class spy, or even the main character is a stenotype on the drunken irish man stereotype

there are some hugely artistic aspects to this game for example when the nazi occupy an area the area is in black and white except of the slight of blood, when you liberate an area it then turns to normal colour, this game even won the E3 award in 2009 for artistic game so the box says proudly at me.

as for the game its self you are an irish man former racing driver called sean who has seen your best freind be killed by an evil Nazi after a race, you escape and seek your revenge and get information were he is hiding by helping and working for the resitance, the game plays very much similar to grand theft auto and other sand box tittles, were you can ether go round having fun causing mayhem or choosing to do the missions, although id say this takes more from the grand theft autos were humour was used a lot and were the game did not take its self seriously.

there are of course things with this game that does get a bit boring or irksome mainly these would be some of the missions you are set are often repetitive and at times it feels like you are doing the entire french resistance by your self and you do wonder what are all these other people doing. also i had some other problems with minor things such as at one point a tank blew a hole in a wall and yet i still was not able to shoot out of it

so in conclusion this game is fun as hell in the same vein as saints row and some of the ps2 gta's its not going to be a perfect 10 of a game but its a fun way of killing a couple of hours

Star Trek Titan - Synthesis

2010-06-07T18:12:00.000+01:00

well I finally finished this book it seemed to take much longer for me to finish this book than it normally takes me to read star trek books, it continues the tale of the USS Titan anc Captain Riker, as he goes further and further into the galexy continuing the mission that Starfleet often wants todo aka seek out new life and new civilizations,

so the story is about the titan who run into a sentient aliens who are all machines, I find this an interesting concept of perhaps running into an all robotic society, however relations for the titan crew and these robots are not always smooth with the use of prejudice on the aliens part looking down on wet minds, and with some actions from the aliens that offend the titan crew that appear logical to the robots but piss off riker ( and thats one man with a beard you dont really want to piss off ).

Anyway the story is these robots are being scared off by this force called the Null who are from another dimension, well im not going to really spoil the rest of the story here but as a result of this threat the two sides have to put there differences behind them and to perhaps work together, the authrour uses riker and trois memories of data often to give some kind of ground to the story and allow us the reader to see what sort of dilemmas about what we constitute life to go on through his mind.

however there are some criticisms of this story, I found that in some places the story dragged, and often was over whelmed a bit by the sheer level of technobabble, perhaps this could have been remedied by making the book about 50 pages lighter, the robots although an intresting concept did very little to really engage me except one or two exceptions.

Overall I would have to say that the titan series is not the most favourite of all star trek books for me, but i am keeping reading them so i can get the most out of the up and coming typhon pact series of which i believe one of the books does involve the Titan, this book is distinctly average in my opinion so 5/10

Doctor Who - the game - episode 1 the dalek city

2010-06-05T18:37:00.000+01:00

So the bbc made a free doctor who adventure game to download from their website, with about 5 diffrent episodes ( levels ) to play through so far only episode 1 can be downloaded episode 1 the Dalek city,

so in this game the doctor and amy decide to travel back in time to see the beatles with amy wanting to see john lennon while the doctor wonders why no one wants to see ringo ? for some reason despite going to see the beatles in 1963 they arrive in London but not just any London a London that has been over run by the daleks. and apparently they came through a crack in the sky wonder if that has any link to the cracks that have been appearing in the tv series

so you play through the game trying to resolve this and get time back on its natural path with the doctor and amy you get to play as both characters at some point, and you only really go through two landscapes Trafalgar square (including the underground) and the dalek home planet skaro inside one base and only 2 floors of that.

Things I like

well the fact thats its a fairly playable free game that involves doctor, its fairly decent in terms of graphics especially if you remember that this is free, it has a good fun plot that is fun and sticks quite true to most of the doctor who stories, its fairly easy to complete and get to the end of the story so people with not much experience with games shouldn't have much trouble with it, and in other good news a pc game that doesnt require a beast of a machine to run it, it works quite well on my modest laptop.

the game also boasts the voice acting of matt smith and karen gillan to the game which makes it even more belivable,

Things I didnt like

the game can often be very repetitive with hiding from daleks finding parts then building them the game can often feel repetitive and a bit stale, also the handling of the charecters is a bit sluggish it sometimes would feel easier to turn a massive lorry than to make amy pond walk around in a circle, also the are sometimes especially the last building game which is incredibly frustrating just one mistake and then all the way back to the start which makes you go grrrr a lot

conclusion

well if you are a fan of this then definatley give it a go and download it, its free and fun, by all means its no uncharted 2 but its still a good way to spend about an hour one afternoon and i for one am looking forward to see what the other 4 episodes are like id give this a fun 5/10 not the greatest but still good to have

2012 - moiveversally challenged

2010-05-29T12:38:00.000+01:00

this is an utterly awesome film ive been waiting ages for Lovefilm to send it to me and then I watched it last night and i was blown away by this masterpiece, directed by the same bloke who did independence day and the day after tomorrow so you know what sort of film were getting into here .

So this is a film about the sun going mental and doing something then the earth goes mental and all the plates start moving and then what we the viewers have is simply a movie of people of all types trying to survive. we have the family lead by a man who talked to a crazy bloke, we have the white house geologist who discovered it all, we have the worker in china who built something, and we have a rich Russian,

What I like

well part of me just wants to write the word everything, when I first saw that the film was 2 hours and 40 mins long i was shocked and though wow this could drag how wrong I was, I loved the visuals in this when you see building exploding and entire cities falling into the ocean, when they then switched to the Characters in the plane and looked down on what was happening it was pretty amazing.

I loved the plot and the story of this film and even though in 2 hours 40 of a film the film seemed to move pretty well and really felt like that it dragged at all which was a pleasant surprise, the plot is essentially one of the bog standard disaster movies but its done on such a huge scale that it makes your eyes bulge and draws your breath away at the sheer scale of what is happening some times you can really empathises with the characters. Also some of the cast part of the time i was watching it trying to think were I had scene half of the actors and i know dr phlox from enterprise was in it when ever i have seen that actor in anything he has always been some form of a doctor.

What I didn't like

well theres not that much to be honest with you however the one criticism that I can think of is towards the end of the film when everyone is trying to escape on the boat that sometimes as the viewer i found that i was getting lost a little bit as it all seemed to happen so suddenly.

Conclusion

I loved this film it was brilliant watch it, i went through a whole range of emotions while watching this and i love it, i am so tempted to leave the house right now and buy the blu-ray. also i am excited by a potential sequal 2013

9/10

Doctor who Tesla Coils

2010-05-28T13:30:00.000+01:00

so what sort of instrument do you want to play the doctor who tune on piano, guitar, triangle ? well no quite shockingly somebody manage to play the tune on some tesla coils amazing

Star Wars Episode 3

2010-05-27T12:11:00.000+01:00

ok well I have had the prequel or first 3 episodes of star wars on my love film list for quite some time all nicely in order however someone decided to send me episode 3 before episode 1 and 2 perhaps just doing it for the giggles of this, oh well I have seen the other 2 before but not since Cinema release. However I do remember that Episode 3 was the best of the modern trilogy.

Things I Like -

well one of the major positives in this is how it looks visually i was watching this on a standard DVD and it looked brilliant the look and feel of the cities was great so much so i wish at times they had stooped the film and just gone for a tour a round the cities. I do really look forward to seeing some of these visuals if it ever comes out on blu ray or what ever other forms of media the future holds for us.

Another positive that I enjoyed was the action/ battle scenes I loved these bits especially the ending were you had yoda fighting the empror and the obi-one and anakin scenes, I found these great and really found my self caught up in this and the battle scenes are absolutey fun and perhaps the best feature of this film. although they used CGI a lot you didn't get the sense that this wasn't a CGI fest and that the duels and battle was there for a reason.

Also I really liked the Scene nearing the end were all of the jedi were being killed off, not for the fact the jedi were being killed off but it just seemed like the real turning point linking the new trilogy and the old ones and also the transition for a change in goverment style from democratic to dictatorship and it was brilliant.

what I didn't like -

well one of the first things i noticed about this film that I didnt like was the use of humour it just seemed like there was to much or perhaps it wasnt good, i understand this film was dark so they had to use humour to lighten us up a bit but really from the start R2 pouring something other robots looking at him so they slipped just didnt fit, also occasional bits were robots were being sliced apart, you hear them saying somthing stupid like uh-oh

some of the dialogue was bad especially when anakin was talking to his girlfriend i cant remember her name i just found slow and painful yeah sure the only reason he turned to the dark side was to save her life and her kids but still surely they could have written the parts a bit better.

Also I feel this film was to long it weights in at around 2:15 long which can feel at time that it drags. i dont know why every so often i got a bit confused by who was meant to be at war with who was it a civil war or what i dont know if this is a case of me not seeing attack of the clones for such a long time were i may have forgotten what has happened but surely for casual viewers there should have been a bit of dialogue saying ' oh we are fighting these dudes as they are being dicks because they kidnapped jar jar' or something

In Conclusion -

This is a much better film than the first 2 episodes, and is defiantly worth the watch, just to get some closure on how Lord Vader came about but definitely not as good as the original trilogy but hell give it a watch. 5/10

Star Trek Generations

2010-05-26T00:29:00.000+01:00

A couple of months ago i got the blu rays of the next generation movie set however till then haven't really watched them that much but I though what better excuse than on Geek Pride day to watch some star trek so naturally I reached out and picked the first of these Next generations movies that also features some of the Original crew,

So what did i noticed and see when i watched this well first of all how fucking good it looked it was beautiful there were some scenes with the wave thing into the nexus and and enterprises that looked beautiful much better than i remembered then again for the past couple of years all I have been going off was a VHS tape I had so the jump to high quality blu-ray was noticeable, only one thing that I found shit was some lightning bolts but other than that it looked great. really seemed to breath fresh air into this.

as for the story well it was done to try and bridge the next gen and tos even though TNG had already been on its feet and established for a long time, however maybe to bridge the cap for the casual movie viewer or something, anyway it starts off on the enterprise B yet another new captain never really liked this new bloke wonder what happened to him probably got owned by some ferangi. but its some story about someone trying to get back in a mystical place with two captains trying to solve the day, to be honest this feels like a film for the fans who often wonder kirk v picard etc. the story isnt particularly strong, but i wouldn't really have said it was that bad. there are a lot of sid plots and things which will be continued in later movies such as datas emotion chip, Also this episode see some things such as the Enterprise D being destroyed.

if you are looking for a fitting conclusion to the tng era and the enterprise D then the last episode all good things is a much superior story if you want to sit down for an hour or so and watch william shatner ride a horse and act with picard this is the film for you, apparently the star trek wiki says that the original opening for this film would have been kirk sky diving and landing on the ground with Chekov and scotty waiting for him, maybe a homage to star trek 5 which saw krik randomly climbing a mountain, despite mentioning in the past couple of movies that he was getting old.

in Conclusion this isnt the best star trek movie but its not the worst ether im looking at you star trek 1 here * shudders* its kind of fanboyish id give it a 5/10

Review of the season

2010-05-11T17:59:00.000+01:00

so i saw on the guardian website they gave some nominations for best matches etc

Best match - Man Utd 4 - 3 Man City - a great match to watch it swung from end to end a truely exciting affair to watch it was almost like a battle between the existing order v the new comers on the block and it ended with man utd winning it with the last kick of the game.

Manager of the Year - Roy Hodgeson - a truly great season for Roy hear taken a Fulham side that were nearly relegated a couple of years ago to a European final !!!!! who would have thought that they would have beaten the like of Juve en route to the final.

Funniest moment - the Liverpool balloon moment to much fun

Soccer Saturday moment - Chris Kamara not seeing that pompey had a player sent off and just the confusion on his face a youtube classic.

unsung hero - Avram Grant - the man kept Portsmouth playing despite all kinds of problems and troubles around him, even leading them to an fa cup final it would be kind of great for a football romantics point of view if they do win the cup. but through all the problems he has kept his dignity and true gent hats off to you Avram

football XI of the season - Hart, Ivanovic, Vermaelen, Dunne, Evra; Milner, Lampard, Parker, Malouda, Rooney and Drogba

Doctor Who - Victory of the daleks

2010-04-17T23:33:00.000+01:00

Daleks, world war 2, churchill, the Doctor, Amy spitfires in space what more could you want from an episode.

well first off I have to say that this is not the most coherent story's due to some fundamental leaps of logic that it takes i mean getting 3 spitfires ready for action in space within 10 mins but if you suspend these logical parts of your brain a feet which i regularly am able to do. you will find this a great episode. however I felt that this episode had a lot more potential to be as good as the second doctor story power of the daleks but due to time constraints and other factor this episode doesn't do as well.

the episode i found started very well with the idea that the daleks were working for the allies in world war 2 not as the all conquering nasty pepper pots that they are but in fact the servants of the allies the Iornsides to help win the war however this all changed when the doctor arrived. we see an angry doctor annoyed at the daleks for what they are yet the daleks not reacting this is all part of their plan however this is at the point i think the show takes a leap of logic.

for example here is when the daleks need the doctor to identify them so they are able to create a new breed of daleks to which i really did not like the look of maybe they will grow on me in time but i just find them ugly and perfered the old (rtd?) style a hell of a lot more, then we get spitfires in space and a hell of a lot other techno-babble

so in conclusion sure this episode makes NO sense but its a good bit of escapism, there were things i didnt like sure like the new daleks like how they could just equip spitfires with laser guns and gravity bubbles in 10 mins, the whole human/robot bomb thing sucked as well disarming by thinking about love.............. the more i think the more im thinking to my self wow that sucks but that was not my reaction having watched it i would have to give this 6.5 /10

Doctor Who - the 11th hour

2010-04-09T00:51:00.000+01:00

Ok hello internet peeps im back which also coincides with a new doctor who series coincidence ? no i am the doctor who has just been regenerated.

ok so going into this i had some high expectations because of the fact that the moff is taking over the man who was behind all of the best episode of doctor who, and this episode did not disappoint me for especially for a series opener and a post regeneration story line in fact i could go so far as to say that I can not think of a stronger post regeneration story episode.

some people may point out this was another saving the world story line yes that is true but i feel the main plot of this episode was that of amy developing and her relationship with the doctor and all the baggage that come from with it. it did kind of seem similar to a bit of the girl of the fireplace episode in which the doctor is through out her life at diffrent stages there to help her. I found it intresting how amy has told everyone and soeme people like her boyfriend have almost tried to live up to this idea of the doctor by going into medicine although he was a nurse, and everyone seemed fimilar with the idea of the raggedy doctor.

in Matt Smiths role as the doctor he did include some of tennants doctor as it was a nice way of slowly merging the character from 10 to 11 I feel by the end of the episode though we had fully seen smith and he did seem to impress me and did fit nicely in the role as the doctor and i warmed to smith as the doctor a lot quicker to when tennant took over perhaps this is a more personal taste on my behalf.

so yes this is a very good episode this is one of the best regeneration episodes and this is also a very good i would give it a 89.77% out of 10 yeah a very good way to start of the new series

I managed to watch this episode after helping my girlfreind move and her falling asleep just at the time i got to watch this while writing this and not being distracted by the office or cider only thing I have to say WHO DA MAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

musicversally challenged - alphabeat lady gaga covers originally called alphamonstermash

2010-02-25T19:06:00.000Z

when i didnt think my day could get any better today in terms of music i find out there is an alphabeat lady gaga mash up on amazon for free

basically its alphabeat covering lady gagas songs compressed into on 4:25 of goodness its awesome, all i need is some meat loaf blondie duet and this day would be the best musically ever

Culturversally challenged - Gets what it wants

2010-02-25T18:26:00.000Z

yes the Kristen Dunst Video is on you tube

musicversally challenged - Indochine - Alice and June

2010-02-19T00:01:00.000Z

Indowho you say whatachine how on earth did you find this band well i was talking about music with someone and she said i may enjoy this listened to a couple of tracks on youtube and was like WOW this is awesome and it was wow and you know what I was so amazed by it 24 hours later i had brought the album and its so cool and there i was and to be honest I have listened it 3 times today so that makes it a more than usually prepared than most musicversally challenged entries but due to it being in a foreign language

Bonjour, Bein bein, J'adore pour en album, indochine Ja sui auvoir,

ok so thats the french version of the blog done for all you non english speaking people who says i dont cover for the world audience

you turn the album on and the first track plays it sounds like the songs underwater your hooked your going hold on a minute you know what this is so crazzy and unusual this works so well. and then it gets more and more like this and you are just drawn into this voyage of creativity, and you get some great songs including ladyboy yes thats right this blog is praising ladyboy ok get past the name its a french song i see you laughing there but yes this is a brilliant song its kind of similar a bit to the killers in the beginning a bit but its brilliant and the video has loads and loads of rabbits playing drums i mean wowz were on earth do we get stuff like that in the UK

its some what refreshing to have an album that you can listen to and just hear the sounds and not the words or anything you know what i mean and because i cant really speak french beyond hello can i have a cheese sandwich means i can just get absorbed by the music its so great to the extent i listened to it 3 times today buy this if you enjoy 90% of the music on musicversally challenged

oh and Alphabeat you have to pull somthing special out to get my 2010 album of the year im telling you this now

totally unrelated to this review but one word to describe my mood now AWESOME

Top 10 star trek next generation episodes - 7 - Tapestry

2010-02-16T16:14:00.000Z

So this is an episode in the next generation that’s sole focus seems to be on Captain Picard the episode starts with an incident and picard is lying in sick bay dead with a shoot to his heart then we get a flash of light and who should appear in an after worldy vision none other than Q. bit surprising to have a Q epsidoe without the letter Q in the title.

So this episode is about picard exploring missed oppotunites in life that I guess we all wonder what if I had done things differently when I was younger etc, in picards case what happens if he had not gotten into a fight with a group of mean looking aliens who eventually stab him, while picard goes back in time to explore this we have Q acting as Tour guide for picard appearing with his usual timing and banter.

So this episode establishes what picard was like when he was younger we see that he was reckless and almost kirk like in some respects to his character and it really is a stark contrast to see how he has changed over this time and how he has gone from this rash figure who laughed when he got stabbed to the more reserved captain we see today,

The episode concludes with picard not being stabbed at the critical moment losing some of his academy friends as a result of not wanting to go to fight then he finds him self on the enterprise not as the captain but as just a science lieutenant conducting boring experiments day after day ( although I highly doubt this would have been the total case as im sure it was mentioned when he was younger in one episode that he had the chance to become an archaeologist but then again that probably a continuity error) however apart from the side track this is to show what his life could have been and he realises how pointless and awful it is not be the man he was when he was in charge of the ship.

I guess this is one of those moralistic endings which say its all the flaws and mistakes that you may have done in the past that make you the person that you are today and hell the grass is not always greener on the other side sort of thing.

Overall this is a great episode which really does explore a lot of things about how us as humans have regrets perhaps when we should not have if that makes sense. The inter changes between Picard and Q are great and the concept of the episode I find is quite interesting

Top 10 star trek next generation episodes - 8 - Unification

2010-02-15T16:12:00.001Z

I remember watching this episode when I was younger it was on bbc2 especially at the bend of the first part were we see spock appear was brilliant and I always found it awesome even though this is more of an episode that explores the romulan culture and society rather than anything else, yes it may mascarade as a story of spoke trying to join the vulcans and romulans together but that is what I wasn’t interested in.

One of the plethora of the next generations good 2 parters, it’s the story of Picard and Data going on holiday to Romulus to see what sort of trouble spock is causing there with a hullaballoo of a mention that the vulcans and romulans should join together and be friends as they are the same race after all,

This episode does seem to have man themes that fit in around the times seeing as this episode was made in 1991 just after the fall of communism you can see the allegories a mile off about what things are supposed to represent the thought that the vulcans and romulans can all be one again aka humans with capitalism and communism joining together again, we see undergroudn movements and parties trying to force the change for good once again similar to what happened in many communist eastern European countries come the end of communism were we saw trade unions such as solidarity in poland try and make a movement using an iconic figure the pope in polands case spock as in the romulans case it all fits together quite nicely we also see who the authorities or tal-shiar are dealing with this. Of course there are more ways the federation and romulans could be compared to the cold war such as the neutral zone being the berlin wall etc.

However there is also another plot device used to spice things up with Sela (tasha yarrs daughter and also the only blonde romulan) trying to manipulate this movement from a distance to use it as a pretext to invade vulcan ( no great loss there then ) ,

While all this is going on riker and co left on the enterprise go and find a missing ship which is important as its one of the ships potentially being used in the invasion. But you are not really watching this episode for that.

Overall this is one of my favourite episode the set the costumes everything just seemed to work there was not as much action as perhaps there are in other next gen 2 parters but still this sis a good solid story that gives you some much needed background to up to that point were often the very 2d romulans to which we knew so little about, hell we didn’t even find out about the reamsn till star trek nemesis

Game review - Flower

2010-02-14T18:22:00.000Z

No this is not me going oh its valentines day lets talk about flowers or any of that rubbish as it is somthing quite different in fact I have often heard good things about this little downloadable game on the playstation network but have never really gotten around to getting it till the other day when i saw it was for sale for around £2.50 so just went oh well lets give this a little try.

I know in the tittle it says game review but this is hardly a game it is more of a relaxation tool and a rather good one i doubt anyone could be angry or wound up after a half hour play on this, I have just played on it for half an hour prior to writing this and i have found my self in such a relaxed mood it is quite nice. the only way this game wouldn't mellow you out is if you are some cold hearted monster that must have some much pits of rage inside you that you probably don't even like anything.

the visuals on this are quite stunning for a downloadable game to be honest im surprised sony dont use this to advertise there tvs as all the mix of colours and everything just make this so beautiful it really is a pleasure almost just to sit back and watch and with the music in the background just make you in that relaxed zone i only intended to play during half time of the match i was watching ended up playing it for over an hour

as for the controls this is one of the few games were i have seen the playstation controller six axis motion thingy really work well just makes you go wow it feels quite good and it does give you the impression as if you are a petal in the wind the one minor downside is sometimes the turning circle is a bit to hard but that is going into to much pettiness for this awesome game

for the love of god just buy this for £2.50 it feels like you are getting the bargain of the decade

Top 10 star trek next generation episodes - 9 - Frame of Mind

2010-02-14T18:04:00.000Z

this is often a forgotten episode I find of the next generation and surprisingly for my a Riker centred episode features in the top 10, perhaps its an episode were he tries doing something serious rather than the comedy trombone parts and when he's hideously trying it on with every woman with a pulse on the ship

the story is basically Riker does a play then believes the play is reality it sounds quite average but in reality I like the darkness that this episode gives off we see him slowly losing his sanity and the walls between the reality he is in and the world he is acting become merged together at first each different world had different people then they all merge together , then we find out the truth he was captured on an undercover mission when some people tried getting info out of him using some 'brain machine' then he was being trapped in his subconscious, and the play the enterprise merges in reality were all a facet of his mind, the episode ends with Riker destroying the set of the play

I find the concept to this episode really interesting of the actor becoming reality interesting especially the way Riker slowly loses his mind its a quite dark and disturbing tale of a man who is sane being driven insane, it almost reminds me of a sort of early Victorian horror play although none really spring to mind but that is the sort of vibe this episode gives off.

Also it was quite refreshing that a show does look at mental health issues for this time although it was still centering around someone going to a mental hospital i actually wouldnt mind seeing an episode of some star trek look at this i suppose the most we get is Nog in DS9 when he loses a leg, still it is somthing that i feel most tv shows miss. So we get the doctor who is constantly appearing to riker.and pshyco analysing him telling him that everything he knew was just imaginary, As well as this there is also some condemnation for the mental health treatments reliance on drugs.

Top 10 star trek next generation episodes - 10 - Parallels

2010-02-09T22:04:00.000Z

This is personally one of my favourite episodes of the next generation as I have often enjoyed the ideas of parallel universes and alternative realities ( hey im a sliders fan ) however the next gen didn’t really have any mirror universe episodes in the same extent that DS9, enterprise or the original series had mirror universe episodes which are all favourites of mine however this seems to be more like a myriad of realities in one single episode

The story its self is essentially worf travelling through different realities we first of all see some subtle differences such as pictures on the other sides of walls and worfs position in some warrior tournament is often changed to fit in with alternative realities however worf gradually realises he’s changing realities now this is were I find the fun starts

We see some many different options and realities of different things that have and could have happened in the next gen from the small things such as data having different eye colour to bigger things such as Bajor being a hostile threat to the federation also this is the only episode were we see a Cardassian wearing a federation uniform, we see realities were picard has been lost to the borg and the ship is left to captain riker and then we see different routes for things such as worf being married to troi.

The episode eventually resolves its self by some technobable by having 100’s of enterprise all in one sector of space and a shuttle craft trying to find worf’s original ship, this is were one enterprise who have been totally weakened by the borg tries to escape into a different reality and they get destroyed by one photon torpedo. I often found it interesting to imagine what other realities may have been created or existed guess it’s the sliders fan inside me.

Overall yeah this is a good episode a personal favourite of mine just seeing all of the subtle changes that occur and everything and it is one of those episode that I do just sit down and re watch every so often for the pure fun that it is

Superbash review - 02 indigo

2010-02-08T22:50:00.000Z

I have no idea what superbash this is but it was my first time there so i am just going by that rule of thumb. so overall i thought it was quite enjoyable.

pre game I found this a lot of hit and miss the dj and music was ok although the movie in the background was hideously out of sync and looked like someone had just made it on windows movie maker, it looked quite amateurish and i am not the greatest fan of hudson never heard of him before, however the venue was night with a good ambiance ( see in my absence from blogging i have learnt a new word). the dance group flawless who i thought were going to be bad were very good. and also a what the fuck moment to the woman throwing the shoe on the stage. oh and i was a big fan of the cheerleaders but i dont really think that needs much explanation why.

during the game the sole focus was obviously on the game however the majority of fans from other teams were saints fans saying who dat who dat and the place did go pretty crazy especially when it looked like the saints had won, however there were a lot of grim faces when it looked like the colts were going to win except for 4 or 5 people next to me who quickly left when the saints went in front, have to say it was great when the saints did the on side kick at the begining of the second half, and the umpire when the saints went for the 2 points was comedy gold

food and drink - now this would be my biggest complaint the bar was only corrs light no other beers and cyders or anything i understand its down to coperate sponsorship but surely coors brew at least one other variation of coors light we did manage to get some whiskey for £3.50 a shot so for 2 doubles you are looking at £14 i could have just brought a bottle for that ffs, also some of the food smelt awful i know im not going to get novel cuisine their however i do expect something better than a bog standard fast food burger truck food.

overall it was enjoyable i imagine it could have been even better with diffrent music and more of a selection of drinks than just coors light 8/10

Torchwood usa coming to a tv near you soon

2010-01-19T23:04:00.000Z

So the news broke today that fox with Russell T Davis are producing a usa version of torchwood. I just cant believe this i am in shock and wonderment it seems they have the whole original story crew etc but what the fuck. was it really that hard to show torchwood as an import will it have to be set in Arkansas what is it going to be a new branch or is it going to be were the missing torchwood 3 turns up are the charecters going to be direct ports or new characters are they just going to raid the large cast of the wire to get one or to token characters that all dramas being made seem to be going after

and john barrowman might be the main character what other person can you possibly get that is camp enough and over the top enough to play cpt jack what oh you saying nicolas cage and eric roberts as the ianto jones character you reader are a deranged person fuck knows i sense car crash but then again im still going to watch this

does it really need to be remade why not just show the british one

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3id183d5e80b48e57c2e6102a3f94da557

La Roux by La Roux

2010-01-18T21:58:00.000Z

once again the vein of original names keeps coming for albums i mean come on give it a name or your self a name is this some arty trend that is going on that as whizzed past my head faster than a red bull or what Just give it a name so we know what the album is or yourself another name just clarify this.

yes this is the 2nd part of the trilogy of albums i downloaded, I heard one or two of her bits of work before so I gave this a listen all the way through sure its good i still love bullet proof and find it is really well put together and i am humming along with some of the songs think yeah this is ok and it did make the journey good as it blocked out the noise of the other idiots around me on the bus but there was nothig that really jumped out and shouted at me oi listen to me now i just can only remember listening to bulletproof

but the main problem is that I can never really see my self going oh lets put a little bit of La Roux on I just cant imagine the sort of mood i would have to be in to say hmmm you know what i need a bit of La roux lets just turn it on you know what I mean sure i like it but i just have no idea when i will listen to it its like some bizzare album thats good but you cant listen to it

musicversally challenged - album review -

2010-01-14T21:04:00.000Z

I got this the over night when i was a bit bored and wanted to download a new album so moved my finger over to amazon and this was one of them at the time i thought this was a bit of a gamble god knows why and its taken me about a week and a half to get round to listening to it with some spare time during the day I gave a listen to it.

yeah it was good no idea how to categorize it but it was good my favourite song is the drumming song which when i first listened to it my mind went to omg this is the perfect for the master from doctor who it has the drums and everything, however the album seems perfectly to get all the songs to join together to make it feel like an unbroken work of joy and there's the famous song at the end which is ok but yeah generally this is a solid album which is good so yeah if you want give this a try

Culturversally challenged - bit high brow above the eye brow

2010-01-14T20:18:00.000Z

The tate moderns pop art exhibition ok this may seem a bit more high brow above the high brow ( a gold star who can guess the podcast reference there) but I thought I would share my thoughts and impressions of what I thought of the place although you will have to get your skates on it closes next week I think maybe even this week in which case you are reading this wishing you had gone.

I found it quite good an enjoyed it a lot more than most of the times I go around art galleries I’m not going to sit here and name them all and all the artists that’s because I cant, also im not going to right well each piece means the damnation of humanities rampant commercialism etc. but when you first go in there is like this silver robot rabbit thing made out what I thought were those foil balloons that you see it is quite a stark image as it is just there and you think wow that’s a robot oh wait no its not just looks good, then there were other things that just make you go hmmm that’s a bit different and of course there were some of the usual things such as a plethora of dead animals. There is also a shop that its own exhibition certainly one way of making money if you want to pay £25 for a tshirt but the walls and celling are all done in this awesome pattern that is just so bright its black and white lines

Oh err there also an over 18’s room it’s a bit quite in their to think there was also a video of an artist sleeping with a man which was apparently an hour long video I walked in just as the hour was starting by the look of it and couldn’t be bothered and did not want to be seen as someone who watches this for a full hour, there was a room which had a picture with loads of dots on it I thought that was really cool

The best room I found was the Japanese room right at the end now this was awesome there was like a massive picture in that kind of Japanese as I want to call it happy art style with people smiling but its such a massive picture there are thousands of things to look at there are also other things in this room was like customised shoes and a giant clam thing with cans of pepsi in it but the best thing was a 100 inch well im just guessing its that big its certainly a lot bigger than my 40 inch tv at home tv with the same 5 min music video going on of Kirstin Dunst ( insert Heart Symbol) with blue hair sing I think im Japanese this is so awesome I stood there in the gallery fro 20 mins just watching it but why oh god is there not a version to buy on cd or dvd this was the best thing in the exhibit and like people buy a postcard of the monna lisa I wanted to but a cd/dvd/blu-ray/laser disc of this but no. great art does something for the first time in 300 years that I like ( bit of an over exaggeration in retro spec) bit of work but no its going to be gone for ever confined to some private collectors collections and never be seen again please please please say this is on youtube or somewhere save me internet you are my only hope

musicversally challenged

2010-01-12T23:02:00.000Z

So another trip into my music tastes including one song that I learnt how to plays chorus another song thats so good that makes you want to rub your chest and pretend you have invisible headphones on .

Friday night lights review

2010-01-12T19:41:00.000Z

This book is advertised as an American football book set in the heart of west texas with in a place called Odessa looking at how a town sets all its pressures and hopes on a young group of high school kids for an entire 4 month spell but this book is far more than just looking at the fortunes of one solitary team in texas this book is more of a socio-economic history of the region of west texas there are broad themes all examined in this which makes this far more than just a regular sports book in fact it is a book that has just about as much relevance to perhaps sociology as it does to sport but this is how the book therefore become accessible to people because it uses the driving force of sport to bring home the messages to people.

For example quite a few of the main themes in this book that arent purely american football such as there is the idea of race and gender perhaps race is more featured in the book but both struck me as interesting things to read about with in the town there was a strong idea of local social history which was interesting still seeing even 30 years after the civil rights movements the segregation that was going on in the town for example it appeared an us and them rivalry between two of the schools both that seem to be in the book largely divided down the lines of pre civil rights movements in regards to demographics however it is slowly changing but there is still a resentment about this within the town and by the end of the book their was a lot of fear about crowd reactions due to other occurrences there were in the city, and the school that has the long history of playing football and winning that the book follows also always beats the team that does not have the same tradition, there are also other avenues in this book that is intresting to read along race lines also other themes that are picked up in this book are gender and they see for example the ways in which the girls try to move up the social ladder by ether in the cheerleading squad or the moral raising squad who are in charge of raising moral for the footballers and they are each assigned one and they have the constant need to out do each other in terms of signs they make and gifts they buy for the footballers as well as this in the book it was mentioned that due to social pressures a lot of the girls pretend to be less intelligent for fear of a social stigma

This book also looks and the rise and fakk if texas fortunes in the later 80’s how due the opec crisis in the 70’s the town had boomed because it was one of the few place that produced oil however with more and more middle eastern oil wells being open and the less viable American oil wells how the economic fortune of the town had decreased in this period and gives a shocking out look into a city that has had its industry ripped away from its heart and how the one unifying thing for a lot of the people whos families have lived in the city for several generations and this is were they beginning o put pressure on the only symbol they can find the high school football team.

However there is still a veneer of american football within the book that does make it relevant to a sports book so we see how this team go on and we see the teams ups and downs such as having to have a multiple coin toss to decide which teams go to the play offs and also the individuals within the team so we look at someone whos whole life is playing american football copes or rather doesn’t cope once they have been injured and unable to play again just at the point when colleges are becoming interested you hear stories of individual sacrifice from the players as they play on with broken ankles and wrists due to their devotion to the team with the knowledge that they are playing in one of the best football teams in texas and as a result collage scouts look at them. With the demand for results from the fans we sere the coach and his despair at having lost 2 matches in one season and the sheer aggression that there is towards him this team with a rich pedigree and history in footballing excellence in the back of most fans minds

Overall this is a very good book to read perhaps not as in depth about american football as I thought it was going to be but it was more of a take on the human side and then the background which all makes up this football team deep in west texas I would give this a solid 87%

Shark attack 3

2010-01-08T23:45:00.000Z

Shark arrack 3 oh my god this is the first film that I have seen in 2010 and i am stunned by what I have just watched, this film was first brought to my attention last year when i found an utterly hysterical clip of it on youtube which turns out to be part of the films conclusion i was utterly in amazement about the potentials cinematic gem staring John Barrowman and a marine biologist and i dont know anyone else i think the woman called jennifer and their is some who reminds me of former nothern ireland manager Laurie Sanchez.

the film is a about a massive shark attacking a beach were at first the film starts off with Barrowman laughing and jokeing and doing more fake laughs in the first 5 mins than I have taken photos so barrowman finds a tooth it turns out to be from a giant shark which some archaeologist says is from a DINOSAUR SHARK not only do we have a regular shark on our hands but we now have a dinosaur shark and from here on the film loses any credit. apparently the shark feasts on electricity that is under water in a cable that some business man is putting under the sea , the film ends with a submarine torpedoing a shark

however there is one moment in this film that is so shocking that it means you wont be able to concentrate on the rest of the film as you will be mentally scared and its when Barrowman him self looks the most terrified oh no its not the bit when he has to fight a shark with a baseball back no its when he goes to the main woman ' hey I'm really wired how about i take you home and eat your pussy' we then get what feels like a 2 hour shower sex scene between them it is more mind blowing than the entire of ricky one put together im still in shock from it.

when i was watching this i thought oh that looks like its made what mid 90's with awful production values akin to doctor who in the late 70's oh no it was made in 2002, its awful I wouldnt even call it a B movie is there such a thing as a T movie ? with what looks like a toy inflatable shark as the main villan and stock footage of sharks

overall if you want to waste 88 mins on your life in a slightly easier way than ricky 1 then try this and it was nice of the producer at the end to leave scope for the never developed shark attack 4

Dead Set

2010-01-07T19:11:00.000Z

dead set is a show that has been written by charlie brooker it appears to be a satirical dark comedy both about the thoughts about zombies attacking the world and the only place being safe being the big brother house not only does this work well as a concept but it also a satirical look on the british media especially their relationship with reality tv, im not normally a fan of zombies they have just never really appealed to me but i found this series every easy to watch, there are some good dark comedy moments and davina McCall turns into a zombie which some people would say is an improvement

the show its self features a lot of stereotypes, so it has the blonde woman from essex who will probably be in nuts or zoo in a couple of weeks time , it has the scouser chav also the token gay cross dresser and their is also a weird 40 year old man their for no reason but to shake things up also their is a satirical look at the media with the producer being the most contemptible and unlikable man you could ever meet, however through these stereotypes their however is one redeeming character probably the only one and luckily for us it is the main character who we see goes on a journey from the start being incredibly innocent oh and that character is played by the daughter of ray winstone

the plot may seem a bit over the top at times especially with some of the plot jumps but then again the story is about zombies attacking the big brother house so some times its just worth it to suspend your realism of how a small woman is able to crush someone's skull with a fire extinguisher but then again this story is meant to be so much more than just another zombie show ( well i say show you can watch it all in one go lasts around 2 hours and feels like a film) and there are moments when you see a zombie staring at the the tv screen with pictures of big brother on it i bet you can guess the meaning and theme their is also lines from someone maybe this is god judging us i suppose you could look on this show on this level but then again i just enjoyed sitting through it

this is a good show to watch even if you dont have a real interest in zombies there is a lot of dark comedy and horror in it, their isnt anything scary or anything revolutionary to the zombie drama but its a good way to spend 2 hours i hope charlie brooker gets a chance to write some other things like this in the future

musicversally challenged - the return of the alphabeat they will turn you upside down

2010-01-07T11:02:00.002Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFpfF2AZzY

alphabeat are one of my favourite bands here is their new song it has a little ufo like ship floating around inside someone, of corurse this song has a deep and profound meaning and cultural realism which is imprinted within the track its self looking at such themes such as love with wonderfully crafted lyrics. its also fast and fun with lasers coming our of a blokes mouth wonder if i have a spaceship inside me

Alphabeat weres your album

2010-01-02T16:35:00.000Z

ok so what's up were is the album it was due to be released in like November then it was pushed back to jan now march i mean come on just release it you are going to get mega sales on it what ever you have just release it the spell was an awesome track and the next video for the next single is going to be released soon if you have it already just release it dont make me wait at this rate i will have enough time to learn how to play the single on the keyboard

Doctor Who the end of time part 2

2010-01-02T12:54:00.001Z

So then i have watched this twice since this was shown on bbc 1 and wow it blew my mind i thought maybe watching it through for a second time would perhaps drag in some place but i still found it a great journey to go through.

we resume were we left off from part one with everyone on planet earth becoming a master clone and then this is when the story becomes interesting as the plot is being set up now and we see what the master is being used for in this giant game of self preservation by the time lords for all his life, with them slowly implanting the drums in his head, although the concepts and the physics of this may not be totally sound especially with the time lord technology apparently being able to send a drum beat out in the masters mind, but were this episode comes into its own is when the Doctor is talking to the master and you realise more and more how similar they are and this is were and when RTD is most effective with his writing not the big world threats but the more relationship building and link ups such as when the doctor asks the master to travel with him was a brilliant scene which was acted so well by tennant and simm.

this episode really came into its own when the timelords especially their president Rasilon which was a bit of a shock to me as i assumed that he had died long long ago they mention him in the classic series as the founder of the timelord society and an evil genius, I guess in the time war they need everyone and everything to fight the daleks. and then it all culminated in the scene with the timelords and the master and the doctor has the decision to make i think that this till the bit in the radiation booth was the highlight of the episode with some beautiful moments. with the mysterious woman who was she that seemingly made the doctor change his decision ? some say that it was his mum others his daughter maybe even his old wife we will probably never know. then we get the master who realises that it is the timelords the timelords he brought back and have been using him all this time and we see some great acting by simm as he shows the frustration anger and tiredness. then after the threat has been vanquished we see the doctor and he has a moment of happiness as he thinks he has surprised this once again is beautiful acting by tennant then we hear the 4 knocks and wilf needs the doctor is their any doubt the doctor will save him no then we get an epilouge almost with the doctor saving people or making them happy we get cameo's from a lot of the new aliens in the cpt jack bar scene such as an adipose falling off the chair etc.

this episode did leave some things unresolved such as what happened to the ood who in the first part there city was to advanced was this left to be explained in the future or something else ?

what happens to the timelords & the master i cant really see them being gone forever ?

did any daleks or any other monsters escape ?

who really was the woman in white ?

as for the next doctor it looks good he did say one thing which i imagine may cause a lot of fans to go mental when he says ooooh im a girl can this mean that the doctor can regenerate into a woman ooo the fun that the internet will have when its been picked up on it all looks good and intresting as it was Moffet who scripted the lines for the new doctor.

overall this did have the same air of peter davisons regeneration into colin baker episode the caves of Androzani in which the doctor sacrifices his life to save a companion / assistant. with some beautiful acting really made this episode Fantastic and with rtd last line he got the doctor to utter was I dont want to go was brilliant im sure people could sit back and complain about the graphics and other things but get a life. as for the next doctos chance GeronimOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

11/10

Doctor Who - Full Circle

2009-12-29T00:44:00.000Z

So one of my Xmas presents was the doctor who trilogy set in E - Space oooooOOOooooo basically a mini reboot they tried doing in the early 80's for doctor who it also saw the emergence of a companion that the official dvd booklet describes as precocious brat if you havent guessed yet its Adric who was original described as a genius artful dodger. however on the good companion front it contains Romana II.

basically the doctor and romanna are travelling in space and some giant space thing happens they end up in espace were i dont know things are similar but slightly different they made no big deal about the differences except it has negative co-ordinates and people heal quicker, honestly it seems impossible to tell the difference between this space and real space.

so when they land on the planet they are confronted with generations of people who have lived on the planet as there spaceship is crashed they try to repair it there is some deadley gas then these weird pig people appear out of the seas they look very 80's doctor who and unconvincing they make pig noises its a bit crap and the bit were they emerge out of the sea is a copy of the bit were the sea devils appears out of the they get in the space ship romana gets bitten by a spider hilarity ensues adric is found unfortunately k9 gets its head kicked in by a pig person.

the episode ends with the people in charge of the ship admitting they know it is working but they don't know how to fly it pig people invade its all very messy and a bit boring and adric become a companion so i cant give this any more than 5/10 as nothing really happened

Avatar

2009-12-27T22:37:00.000Z

yeah its overrated I got back from seeing it tonight first things first i saw this in 3D but I dont think i quite got the full experience of this probably due to cinema incompetence and maybe me sitting in a bad spot so the technology definatley needs refinements. and a pair needs to be made than can slot over regular glasses

I was really excited about seeing this film before going in I had read some stuff and i was really interested in it however what i got instead was a 162 min long long long slog as a battled through to get to the end the mian thing i hated about this film was there was generally nothing to it, the first hour and a half consisted of someone walking about with a load of blue people learning how to fly a bird it was just boreing and the most blatant use of trying to show off hey we can do these landscapes with computers these days it just left me a bit cold.

then the story just continues with learning about the blue people you also find out there big old tree that they live in contains the planets largest deposit of unatainium one of the worst names minerals i have ever heard and from here on we get lecture after lecture rammed down our throat about moral issues such as how evil the humans are coming in and moving the aliens on how evil this is compared with colonialism how evil all this destroying the environment is oh they said the earth has no green left , just a load of self preaching toss and the fact it is done so overtly makes you just want to rip your eyes out.

the inconstancies in this film also wound me up early on in the film the blue people arrows do nothing to a helicopter at the climax of the film they can break through glass and kill a person, also the sheer stupidity of the military and you can spot the ending a mile off with the idea of the planet coming to the rescue of its inhabitants because they 'respect' it and then the lead charecter eventually becoming the alien shows that there is still redemption for all of us.

overall if you prefer style over substance watch it i would give this 42.3%

Doctor Who End of Time Part 1

2009-12-26T17:45:00.000Z

The end of time the last story for the 10th doctor and this episode certainly was a mixed bag with some ultra serious moments to the next minuet some very light and potentially funny comedy moments,

the episode its self starts off with a cult group of people called the cult of saxon using the secret books of saxon to recreate the master with an appearance of the masters wife and we find out who stole the ring i did enjoy the look and feel of this but could they have found something a bi more original than 'the secret book of Saxon' it just strikes me as like magic , the master then become some hungry all powerful blonde skeleton / time lord and goes round eating, we do see some character evolution of the master i think that he has become more mentally unstable than since we last saw him however there is also a similarity between the master and the doctor they are both alone no matter who they are and what there choices have been they are still fundamentally alone all though the doctor does talk to wilf how well does the doctor know him ? what meet him for about 2 mins all together and he is the only person the doctor can talk to.

the doctor through this episode is struggling with the guilt and knowledge he has been having since the waters of mars with the idea that he is going to die soon and his journey of trying to come to terms with this he has to track down the master when the OOD show him this he is giving peoples bad dreams, this is were we get some of the comedy moments when wild tries to track down the doctor and we get a bus load of geriatrics to find him and some embarrassing comedy slotted in for the Christmas season. they see each other and the master shocks everyone by doing a super high jump i was not really a fan of this i thought it just was'nt needed then the doctor hears the masters drums and knows the master is not insane

all while this is going on we over here a voice over talking who could it be well if you are a fan then you would have guessed that it was the timelords

then the main story point got set up the magic gate thing which was said could make someone live for ever or as the master repaired it to heal an entire planet to become the master race a race of john simms the ulitmate fear for the doctor probably and then we get the big reveal probably more dramatic than a planet of the masters we see the time lords this was my highlight of the episode getting to see how the new series would recreate these bunch of insular secret society planet and its pretty loyal to the original although it did remind me of the federation parliament in star trek.

overall there are points in this which were good and made you go oh my numerous times however i did find the middle 20 mins seemed to sag some what and i was just thinking when are they going to get to the final bit so this was an episode were the good bits were very good just could have used better pacing and a bit more consitancey even so i still give this 82.5%

perhaps the greatest scifi show theme song ever

2009-12-18T23:18:00.000Z

oh and you think this is brilliant you wait till i review the series not to give much away but within one 20 min episode there was a snake wearing a suit and a cat like doctor

2009 awards media

2009-12-18T22:41:00.000Z

Film of the year - Star Trek

this is my favourite Film that was released in 2009 it has fun it has action it has star trek it has loads of things that you want and need for an awesome blockbuster although this is not the best star trek film you wait and in a year or two's time this is going to be on tv a lot at Christmas etc as this is a family film that you can watch without even knowing anything about star trek it is just fun fun fun, i was so excited when it came out i was jumping up and down i went hyper so yeah this wins movie of the year.

TV Show of the Year - Torchwood

a weeks worth of John Barrowman on tv what's not to like well apart from the added barrowman which was worth it, the show was also engaging interesting and dam right omg i want to know more moments all the way through it I cant think of any show this year that has engrossed me so much like the children of earth well i dont know what the new doctor who special is going to be like so that may blow me away even if it did it would still feel cruel to take it away from Torchwood

Song of the year - Lady GAGA - Just Dance

Yeah i think this came out in January if not i heared it first in january and it is so close so this goes in love this song it does what it says on the tin it makes you want to just dance so yeah download it and have fun

The Lily Allen gig i went to last night

2009-12-18T22:03:00.001Z

it was at the 02 academy in Brixton never been there before so it was interesting to see a big empty room with a lot of 1920's esq architecture around the place which really did add a stark contrast with the rest of the scene for musical entertainment, some dj was playing some music before hand it was ok,

one thing i do have to mention was the price it cost for drinks there i know you are the sole sellers of drinks but there's no need to be over the top with your pricing £6 for a double whiskey and it wasn't really a good one i mean for £4 more i could just by a bigger bottle of whiskey that would last me a lot lot lot lot lot lot longer just seems over the top, its ridiculous i think a pint of strongbow was £4 as well there which is totally over the top were the hell did this strongbow come from to cost that much did they brew it in the place you dont have to worry about and how the hell does my local supermarket in that case can be able to sell it for 99p just outrageous don't have to worry about binge drinking there the kids will be bankrupt after 2 pints.

as for the gig yeah it was good fun there were loads of songs that i could sing along to which was quite fun, cant remember what songs were played exactly but it was all the famous ones that i had heard of so i could sing a long to i did shout out some random stuff like demanding 'proportional representation' at that point i was told to shut up by the person standing next to me also it felt like i was the only person jumping i wondered if people were worried if they jumped someone would put a mirror under them so when they landed they got 7 years bad luck and yes i got told to stop jumping more subtly by the same person. but yeah the gig was good and fun and it was entertaining so yeah it was fun. the guitarist had like 7 guitars in about 2 hours work what the hell i mean surely you only need one and have one on back up encase it breaks makes no sense

so if you have a chance to go yeah go

afterwards there was loads of snow and i was trapped on the train for what felt like a year i swear dr zhivago spent less time on a train in the books

Star Trek the Romulan war Beneath the raptors wing

2009-12-14T22:43:00.000Z

This story tells the story of the much debated war in the star trek universe about the earth romulan war which we first hear about in the original series and about 40 years latter we get the story of how it un folds although this is a book states it is part of enterprise it is much broader prospect look at more areas than the NX 01 ship, although a lot of the characters who are in enterprise do feature.

When I read this book I had two distinct impressions of it in terms that there are many things I enjoyed reading about mainly about the war how it happened and looking at it in a broad view seeing how the newly formed alliance would work together and combat the romulan threat but there were elements of this book that bored me rigid mainly the vulcans well I know I do hate them and they bore me I just found the entire sections of the story were the vulcans have a small plan to do something to stop them fighting in the war so tediously boring that I just wanted to get back to a battle or some form of real crisis that I could enjoy but no I had to read about vulcan

What this book tried to do was to look at how war would affects all areas of life so they had a reporter going round trying to talk to people to see what was going on although this was a good use of a plot device the scenarios the reporter was in were sometime interesting but could have perhaps been in more depth and maybe have looked at some more of the humanitarian crisis’s that were going on perhaps instead on reporting about the native american martians which was one of the most mind boggling developments of the future if there sis a united earth why not a united mars ? I couldn’t get my head around that part.

Perhaps one of the most disappointing things about this is to find out at the end of the book that this is a multi part book no big deal you would think you can just buy the next one in the shop but it isnt out yet and its not going to be out in 2010 so the earliest it could be out is Jan 2011 that’s 14 months away and the most annoying thing is that the part that is the furthest in the future is the introduction which will lead to the next book.

In conclusion it is an interesting story looking at a part of earth history that has never been really examined at all in any other forms of star trek before although it has been theorised seeing the book at 550 pages long and still needing a sequel shows the ambition that the author has for the story however it could have been done in one book if they had cut a lot of the needless Vulcan bit or included Tuvok break dancing that would have made the vulcans some what good, it is frustrating not knowing what is going to happen for at least 14 months, this novel is nothing special but then again it is not bad its just average

Musicversally challenged Challenge

2009-12-13T20:51:00.000Z

read about some people had a facebook group to stop the xfactor song going to number by encouraging people to buy Rage Against the machine - Killing in the name just brought my copy already number 14 in the itunes chart ether by from itunes or play as these places are counted in the charts. and suspiciously the 60,000 person strong facebook group has vanished

now if you want a geeks element to thins then Garrett Wang aka Harry Kim was in one of their videos and also Tom Morello one of the guitar people in rage against the machine was in Voyager the episode good sheppard and was in insurection and claims to be a die hard trekkie

just listened to the song while typing this and it was surprisingly good

Doctor who - Colditz - Big Finish

2009-12-08T17:04:00.001Z

Now this is a story which does have a very much of a marmite reaction to it as some people ether really love it and other really hate it I would count my self on the side of favouring it as I do find it essentially a good story to listen to.

The story its self is set during the second world war in Colditz Castle and does play very much similar to a 1950’s black and white film of the same variety and that’s what makes this so great as the Germans can be seen as so 2D and it is almost a parody of the entire prison escape world war 2 genre that there are so many of these movies it even had the upper class British officers who plan the escape so with this back drop already in place then the characters of the Doctor and Ace are inserted into the plot.

The story goes along the lines that the doctor and ace land in the middle of the castle and are soon after captured were they are separated ace is treated like another high profile prisoner who is guarded at all times were as the doctor soon gets his own special interrogation from a mysterious woman and we get to see very little of the doctor and ace working together but we get to see how their different personalities try to get them out of the castle for example Ace’s way is to try and escape by brute force and going with the escape committee were as the doctor as usual is trying to think of the long game for the way out by trying to manipulate his integrator who turns out is from an alternative future who has managed to get the doctors Tardis.

The story at times does feel like a 50’s war movie and then other times feels a lot more in depth with another under tone about what is right and wrong historically and how it is up to the Doctor to preserve this web of time. We see a lot of character development for ace and she even begins at times to be wanted to be called McShanne ( her real surname) and maybe an original idea of big finish may have been to move her away from the ACE teenager into more of an adult although they did make her mature into an adult she still kept key traits in latter plays such as being called ace

In the end I would give this story a 7.75 out of 10 a good fun story that will easily pass an hour and a half when bored if you love 2d germans and world war 2 have a listen also David Tennant is in this as another character

Musicversally challenged - return of the 3 random songs

2009-12-07T17:44:00.001Z

So once again 3 random songs that i have listend to or laughed at

My name is John smith im the doctor

And now for the 3rd and final song the Barrowman one although not cpt jack singing this is worth the entertainment i was not looking for this it found me and yes that his him

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2009 - Torchwood

2009-12-07T17:29:00.000Z

So this is the show that started off so badly but by the year 2009 oh how it had changed,

The spin off from doctor who that started in 2006 soon grew to become a decent series in its own right 3 years later by the year 2009, the show had a very rocky start and was often viewed as an adult version of doctor who that just put certain bits in to try and say look hey we are after the watershed and the first series except for the occasional good episodes was criticised there was some moderate improvement for the 2^nd series however it was the 3^rd series that made torchwood stand out for its own merits and step out of the doctor who shadow.

When I first heard the news that the bbc was trying to compress torchwood to 5 episodes in the space of one week I was sceptical and was thinking perhaps this was a way that the bbc was trying to kill of cpt jack and his merry band of alien hunters with doctor who having a year off I thought that torchwood would at least have the centre spot, however when I saw the children of earth story I was amazed at how good it was and was left hoping they do a similar thing next year however since then it has been announced they have reverted back to the 13 episode series

The story about some alien menace trying to take over the earth using children was nothing revolutionary but the way torchwood did it made it breath taking the script was brilliant everything was great , and the serialized format of having an episode every night really dominated the schedule and the momentum of the previous nights episode kept building and building to the finale which was great. The show that was written off for so many years by critics had now produced an awesome blockbusting mini series that just takes your breath away

Another good thing about torchwood as opposed to doctor who was that they actually kill of characters people die ( except for Cpt jack) and this makes this show a lot more realistic and you never do actually know who is going to live and die in the past 2 series 3 of the 5 main characters have been killed off one way or another when was the last time a companion died in doctor who ? so this can mean that the characters that you like generally will not be in any other episodes after they die properly.

Overall if you have never seen torchwood before perhaps start watching it it doesn’t really matter what series you do start off with if over the top campness puts you off then perhaps avoid series 1 and start with number 2 but you should at very least watch series 3 ( the children of earht ) I think it is the best sci fi series of 2009 I didn’t think I would ever describe torchwood as being that good.

New doctor who trailer

2009-12-06T19:18:00.000Z

Ladies and Gentlemen Christmas is Cancelled

So as we can see from this trailer there are some more interesting points for the finale

the OOD has got its red 'evil eyes' back when he is predicting the Doctors end

some pot in the middle explodes and smoke comes out and someone looks like they are being born out of this i dont think that it is the master and it appears to be the man in the smoke has dark hair

we are told that Christmas is cancelled and then a gate is being activated

then we get Master business hes back and he looks evil with lightning special powers what the heck is going on here I have no idea then he is on a computer wearing a red collar telling someone he is the master there are some interesting symbols on computer screens and loads of circles I wonder if this is a symbol of something then he fires a button on a computer who knows what happens from then

this seems to add some more information to the plot but still raises even more questions role on xmas day

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2008 - Stargate Atlantis

2009-12-06T18:28:00.001Z

Now this show probably always gets dwarfed by its bigger brother SG1 but to be honest with you I always preferred this to SG1 I know that maybe sacrilege to some people but it’s the truth and in 2008 we saw the last series of stargate Atlantis.

Essentially SGA is a spin off in a similar vein to SG1 with a group of people travelling through the stargate to other world just like Kirk Douglas did in a movie, but it was here in season 5 that I really did enjoy it and saw some of my favourite episodes of stargate in season 5.

To be honest with you 2008 was a bit of a barren year for sci fi wise in comparison with other years most of the other shows that were on in 2008 I have already mentioned, the only other show that I can think of is Fringe which I absolutely hated for its mind numbing boredom that it produced in me. And SGA was one of the few highlights in an other wise dull year with some very good episodes most of these would feature my favourite SGA character rodney Mckay going around the crew of atlantis had changed quiet a bit since it first started with some different crew and character dynamics made it great to watch

Season 5 included some good episodes such as rodney mckay getting some memory disease that degrades his brain one of my favourite sci fi episode of all time. This series also featured nicole de boer in an episode wooo, other highlight episodes include the episode in a parallel universe where there is no stargate and the wraith comes to earth and you get some almost fake csi episode some of these episodes are serious but what is also good there are some fun episodes that are on as well.

This series is never going to win any major awards for serious sci fi but it is a good solid and fun sci fi that was on tv and what was also nice it was a series that didn’t really have any major story arc there were some for the long term fans but I feel it is also the sort of show that anyone could have dipped in and out of which makes it great in terms of the rewatch value of the show as you can just literally say im going to watch this episode tonight can you really say the same things about Lost or heroes due to its story arc central to the plot in what feels like every episode ?

Overall this is a fun show to watch that in an era of long story arcs and other tv that chose to try and be to serious most of the time choose to be different and followed that stargate tradition of not taking its self to seriously so if you see this on tv hey give it a watch and enjoy it

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2007 - Life on mars

2009-12-05T17:25:00.000Z

Fire up the car and lets go,

Normally most people wont really classify this as a real sci fi but when you really look at this there are some great traditional sci fi elements and acted wonderfully by John Simm and Philip Glenister and was so good it fashioned a sequel called ashes to ashes.

Set in the 1970’s when a modern day police man finds him self transported back in time to the 70’s straight up this looks like a straight but odd cop show but it is dfar more than that on one level you can watch the episodes every week and just view it as a police show but there are over levels and themes that run through the show such as man trapped out of his time and trying to find away home ,

As the series goes on and on some elements become more and more surreal such as in one episode we see them all for a couple of moments as models that go around in a children’s show. We also see other weird things that at the time us as the viewer we did not properly understand such as the open university professor on bbc2 who just will suddenly talk to sam and tell him, with addition of characters from other areas who some of them have their own motivation for sam lead to an interesting finale

This episode also looks at some modern themes and how they were viewed in the past with this method you could call this a section of time travel, and we see how policing past V policing present especially in the final episode of series 2 we see how social attitudes have changed with in the past 30 years and they also make you think how our views and attitudes will perhaps change in the next 30 years regarding to social issues and the world that we live in.

This series does have some absolutely wonderful characters with in it from the DCI Gene Hunt who is the sheriff of the town to sam tyler the man trapped in essentially an alien world with different ideas and views of how the basic things in the world work , and there is also a selection of great secondary characters who all add something to the show from the naïve to the cynical.

Overall I would advise you to watch this series as it is absolutely great with a great script and story line idea and wonderfully executed by all the actors and everything if you havent watched this yet I would advise you to go out and buy borrow or what ever you have to do and make sure you watch it from the start so that you get the whole experience of the show, all though it is not overtly sci fi there are definitely distinct sci fi routes running through out the series

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2006 - Heroes

2009-12-04T17:10:00.000Z

The modern day X men ? or something else

Heroes exploded onto our screens back in 2006 with much applause and acclaim for its first series it was sci fi but it was seen as for people who didn’t like sci fi it focused on character not just story line and the first series was really good it was intresting and it was seen as unique ( although people who watched the 4400 2 years earlier may say other wise)

The story is about a group of people who have suddenly awakened some hidden powers that they have such as Nathan’s ability to fly and then there is claire who can heal her self ( very similar to jeffery coombs power in 4400) we also see how these characters deal with these new found powers do they show them off to the world ? are they proud of them ? do they keep then as a secret ? and what do they do with them and this is what made the first series of heroes great combined with an other reaching story line leading people together at one moment one precise moment to save humanity, all these people who never knew each other before were suddenly inter linked, this show was great there was a rush in the uk for which channel would get the rights I felt sorry for the sci fi channel they had bravely brought this show and carried it through the first series probably one of the few shows they got ratings for then it was stolen by the bigger channels and just as this happen the show started to go down hill.

It lost direction and became boring and dull the second series was written off as the fault of the writers strike then on came the 3^rd season with bizarre plot twist and the viewers was never given the sense that the writers actually knew were they were going and certain characters seemed to dominate the show way way beyond the limits that the should have, the good characters seemed to be disposed of were as the boring mediocre safe characters seemed to remain heroes had lost its edge there seemed to be a real lack of decent innovation with in the show and it does feel it has lost its way

This show started off with so much potential and hype and to see it fall by the way side that it has done is quite disappointing hopefully it can be resurrected and rebuilt but who knows how season 4 will play out ? then again lets say to our selves ‘ don’t be negative ‘ we do have one awesome season of heroes to fall back on and if one series can be made of that good standard then surely other can follow

So in conclusion watch heroes series one you will enjoy it however be prepared for a radical drop in quality faster that Concorde

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2005 - Doctor Who

2009-12-03T18:09:00.000Z

So this was the series re booted by RTD out of a much to long hiatus for the doctor and 2005 will go down as the year that the doctor came back well probably not the only thing 2005 is remembered for I mean this was the year we got a new pope but doctor who was still probably the biggest thing from this year well apart from Charlton relegating palace.

The doctor swung back into time this time played by christopher Ecclestone the 9^th doctor we never got to see what happen to paul Mcgann we assume her died in the time war oh yes that happened as well and we still don’t know what the hell happened in that, the first of the new series companions was rose Tyler played by Billie piper much shock and awe more so than a Donald Rumsfeld speech when we first heard this news and to be honest she did a lot better than what most people thought she did, although still not as good as Ace by any means.

Then after the first season the main man who was going to drive doctor who home came on board namely David Tennant now I am by no means going say tennants is the best doctor or even best scotish doctor( Sylvester McCoy for the win) but he is a very good doctor and actor he has also done miracles for the show in getting it noticed by the general public and I think in the future he will be as an iconic doctor as tom baker is to a whole new generation of fans and the pressure must be on matt smith as a result,

In terms of stories there have been some absolute classics which will be remembered such as Blink the empty child Human nature and so many more however there have also been some horrid stories such as the one with peter Kay which proves that when doctor who is good it is really good however there can also be some episodes that has you longingly look at the mind destroying episodes of trial of the timelords with fondness, there have been some nice in jokes and comments about past doctors and lives which are always good to hear for fans who have watched the classic series

Luckily for doctor who it had a cult following and fan base already and with a deep link with the british public it was able gain an audience very quickly which left over channels confused and unable to have any show to use to fight against the Doctor need I remind you of Itv’s attempts to show celebrity wrestling and *shudder* Deamons the popularity of the doctor endured so much that two spin offs were made the over the top john barrowman show of the first series Torchwood which became really good later on and the kids friendly version the sarah jane adventures

Overall this show has been one of the sci fi high points of the decade and also the show which I feel personally I have got the most enjoyment out of must watch this if you haven’t or you will be EXTERMINATED

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2004 - Lost

2009-12-02T17:05:00.000Z

Lost

The year is 2004 then there is a plane crash in the pacific ocean and bang there goes the schedules

Yes this is lost another marmite show and one that if you havent started watching from the beginning you will find impossible to understand, I do classify this show as scifi as there is enough stuff in this such as time travel for it to fit in this bracket while it is a main stream drama on TV. This is also the most infuriating series ever.

The show is essentially about a group of people who have landed on a remote island that no one really knows exists so you might expect that the story is essentially their survival and how they will try and wait their time for a boat to pass by , perhaps aiding this in building wooden huts and having a train made out of coconuts, well its not even from the first episode you get the impression that something more sinister is a foot when you hear the rumblings of giant monster stomping around a forest rooooar . then we get more and more further trip into a world that alice from the alice in wonderland would feel is a little extreme with sudden appearances of secret groups on the island and changes from them being bad guys to good guys etc.

The structure of each episode is we focus on one character in each of the episodes and look at their back stories of how they came to the island what their life was like before hand and then as a viewer we get to see the change the character has made with a wide selection of characters there is bound to be at least one character that you like, there are plenty of characters all different and new unique such as the ever present hunter and general out of this world should john locke , the other clean cut and freshly shaven man of science jack or then there is the comedy guy Hurley when it seems to be an impossible situation to add more characters they find ways and there should be at least one you like also at least one you detest and hopes get hit on the head with a coconut

essentially the series is a 5 series long story arc one a similar scale to the wonderful babylon 5 with each year having a story arc and then one over hanging one through all of the series, the show is irritating in the way they don’t tell you answers to the questions so you end up keep watching it to find out what happens next with small clues and little hints given in characters names and other remote ways that keep people on the internet guessing for years and months and then the writers through in some new information such as time travel appearing out of no were that makes you utterly gobsmacked and bemused.

As a result of lost we have seen loads of these other shows that have come out as a result that try and do these long story arc as a result although it was not lost that started this it was lost that popularised it I feel it does kind of detract in some ways from tv as a whole as you cant really just sit down and watch an odd episode essentially this show did change tv in the way we know it. But if you want a 5 season looking story watch it

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2003 - Battlestar Galactica

2009-12-01T16:13:00.020Z

yes this did originally air in the year 2003 so it fits nicely here to have a look at this

some say that this show is the pinnacle of science fiction and even the best tv series ever made in the 00's others say that season one and two were awesome then lost its way while another group of people lets call them the 3rd parties say that this show was totally overrated,

Essentially this is a reboot of the 1970's series with some radical changes made to try and make it appeal to a modern audience all though i have only seen a hand full of episodes of the original series and i can say that the new version is better, they have made some fundamental changes such as some of the characters changed sex to appeal to a more modern world. there are no longer any rubbish aliens that george Lucas would be embarrassed about, also in this series they try and look at themes such as freedom, terrorism occupation survival and so many more themes. some of these themes were key issues of when this series was being made ( think Iraq war)

the series is quite noticeable in terms that there is a drop in quality after season 2 ends and i feel it does detract from the show and it does lead to the mind blowing conclusion which just is very disappointing, it will be interesting to see how the spin off show caprica does when it is launched fully and will it be able to step out of BSG shadow?

i do have hot n cold reactions to this show i do really enjoy the mini series and the feature length episode Razor but then there are some episodes that I have watched just makes me want to hit fast forward. I like the premise of the story but to many things in my mind and eyes an ears weighed this show down and just failed to make it live up to its full potential

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2002 - Firefly

2009-11-30T15:42:00.043Z

the first of the shows that were created in the 2000's decade reaches the list and its;

From the creator of buffy he turned his attention to a new show set in space about a group of people who had lost a civil war it only lasted one series and eventually one movie but it has developed a cult following since them by a group of fans calling themselves browncoats

the story its self is about people on the losing side of the government be it a civil war or another reason's of government control, and it is often seen that they are the plucky underdogs fighting against the system one thing that is notable that this is a show set in space but there aren't any aliens its like wow purely looking at human interaction in different settings than we are used to. we see how the surviving losers of a civil war are treated by the victors,

also this is has lots of different characters with their own unique personalties such as Jayne the over the top gun nut to River the out of this world crazy girl played wonderfully to summer glau, to the ultra cute Kaylee (jewell Strait ) and many more which all adds to the show, as each characters have their own back story and reasons why they are on the ship and the show therefore explores these reasons.

overall this is a good series that you should watch just to see what it was like, it was a shame that it was cancelled after one season by fox and it has often been hoped by fans that there would be another series made on another channel or something but all the rumours that keep happening never materialise this is one of those shows that is left to remain with so much potential

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2001 - Star Trek Voyager

2009-11-29T17:58:00.000Z

so in this one we look at Star Trek Voyager Which ended in 2001

The main thing that happened to Voyager in 2001 was that it ended with one of the worst season finales that I have ever seen with time travel but unlike the next gens time travel finale which was good this was not. the series had often received higher ratings than some of the other star treks that were around at the time which some people argue at the time were better,

it seemed in this series that they wanted to revisit every race and everything they could think of in this season, with the Borg, Hirogen , Ferangi, Klingons, Q and Telaxians were all in this considering that voyager had travelled faster than the speed of light for 7 years and still they were just plodding around bumping into the same people was one of the reasons that this show was never as good as it could have been.

However there were some high points in this series such as the episode Equinox in which we see a renegade starfleet captain who was also in the delta quadrant made more morally darker choices gave a interesting different perspective , also the character of the doctor often saved episode with his frequent use of humour and they even showed that the writers were prepared to give characters character development by letting the doctor try and become and office or the ECH, were harry kim seemed to have done nothing in years

overall this is a show that had so much potential but bad choices by the people who shaped this show plagued it and in my mind made one of the weaker star trek series in my eyes, but there were some elements of this show that you could see in another giant of science fiction in a couple of years time and perhaps a route that voyager could have taken and did in one episode written by Ronald D Moore which could be seen as one of the best voyager episodes

so far a very weak start to the decade

Science Fiction TV in 2000's - 2000 - Sliders

2009-11-28T18:20:00.027Z

So then every blog post I plan on looking at a Sci fi show that was going on at the time and talk about it basically, I know there are some shows that I am missing out mainly as I haven't watched them yet and this list is for only shows I have watched . I was devastated to find out both DS9 and Babylon 5 both ended in 99 as they would have been great additions to the list

this giant of parallel universe inter dimensional giant was nearing its death by the year 2000 with a cast that was 75% different than it was when it first started and the show was definitely a hell of a lot more weaker than when it started off with. and to be honest we never got a real ending to how the series ended we know that the Kromags had invaded our earth and then Rembrandt ' crying man ' Brown went back to our earth with a virus to kill those dam Kromags,

but this show at first and still had the potential to be a much better show with the ideas and visions to look at social issues but by putting them into a different dimension we can look at things such as inequality and immigration such as the episodes when the American tried breaking into Mexico. but alas this did not last when they invented their main Foes the Kromags and the show seemed to turn into a mass war between our heroes escaping from them with constant cast changing from the 3rd season lead to a loss of quality in the show which was to the detriment of it. as one of the reasons we liked it was to watch professor Arturo argue with Crying man and this sort of character comedy.

Overall this show had as much potential to be equally as big as Quantum Leap with its cult following but as a result of some changes to try and 'shake things up' this lead to the show getting even worse alas the beginning of 2000 does not begin on a good note.

Musicversally Challeneged Please god let it be over now

2009-11-27T22:49:00.000Z

5 - The Beatles - Sgt Pepper - I believe colonel Vinegar was very disgruntled when he found out that the beatles were going to name it sgt pepper perhaps the more extrovert member of the condiment division well at least they didn't name it private Pickles, good song nice to sing a long to

4- Anthony Michael Hall - Hallelujah - do you think i was going to have a list that went this far that didn't have a reference to the Dead Zone in it you can really feel the music and emotion in this song also brings a tear to the eye thinking about all those classic Dead Zone memories wild horses running people over, a mad finale a cake vision *sigh* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYPKLRk-zHw

3 - Tchaikovsky - 1812 overture - the highest point that classical music gets on this list and a great musical master piece and they think so far outside the box they bring out cannons thats right cannons into a peice of music i mean they had the chance to put a harp in but fuck it no we are having god dam cannons in, it was originally written as a celebration for stopping Napoleon in 1812 originally

2 - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody - this song is great and what is also great you can parody it like what the muppets did and the bloke who used footballers names in the song

1 - Meat Loaf - Bat out of hell - awesome song its like they combined 5 songs of sheer awesomeness into one song and it will blow your mind when you first it here it and when you one day discover the 10 minuet version of the musical equivalent of the great works of Dickens and everything else and meat loaf sings it so well very very very few people are brave enough to cover it

one of the moments the internet was invented for

2009-11-25T22:17:00.000Z

Beautiful

4400 season 3

2009-11-23T23:19:00.001Z

so the 3rd season in the USA network epic scifi about people being abducted from the past taken to the future and returned to the present with super powers. This series seems to take a turn in a much darker direction than the previous two. there are also certain themes that run through this probably looking at america at the time (2006) but they are as subtle as an elephant sitting on a sofa with a top hat on.

the series its self could be said to almost be in two parts the first is talking about a militant 4400 group spreading their message through out America to create a fear of them this is were the allegory's of terrorism and other such insurgencyare most visible , in which we see an arms race between the military who are trying to create their own force with 4400 abilities.

the other half of this series is the return of Jordan collier who seems to have come back in a messiah like figure, and what the fall out of a man who could be said is a prophet for the future and hell if you are going to have a prophet i guess the people working on the show thought lets go the whole way and make him look like Jesus, as a result of this he is on a mission to spread the drug that causes people to develop powers for the general population to create a lot of happiness in the world and something but comes with a terrible consequence 50% of people who will take this will die

a mini arc that happens is tom Baldwin is asked to kill Isabel in which he wrestles with moral issues about his own nature and is it write to kill some who can cause evil but is yet to so we see him really struggling with this

one good thing about this series is the return of Combs and Summer glau as an awesome scifi double team that is kevin and tess

in conclusion they have obviously tried to make this show a lot more serious and have jumped aboard the ideas of tv at this time which was to have loads and loads and loads of story arcs and everything like that but it is a slow but gradual improvement

The top 10 part 1 of the greatest songs ever accordinbg to musicversally challenged

2009-11-22T22:50:00.000Z

10 - Gustav Holst - Planets suite ( Jupiter) - the first bit of classical music on the list and I love this peice of music absolutely beautiful

9 - Meat Loaf - Dead ringer for love - awesome song love it lasts for what feels like ages its so cool i think that its like well 2 good songs merged together by some powerful merging device to great some awesome song

8- Bonnie Tyler - Holding out for a hero - I NEED A HERO and Bonnie Tyler comes up trumps with this hero of song to fill the number 8 place on this list.

7 - Blondie - Maria - didn't realise this was blondie when i first heard it but then when I did i was like wow is there any end to her talents this is an awesome song that makes you want to sing MARRRRRRRRRRRRRRIA at the top of your voice

6 - Clint Mansell - Lux Aeterna (requim for a dream) - aka the song that is used on all the film trailers all the time and is a very good piece of music by itself shame it gets played to death in a meaningless fashion these days http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q31K_8gFwQc

Ricky 1

2009-11-22T16:11:00.000Z

yes the only parody of Rocky available that i know of with the tag line of it does to airplane to what the film airplane did to boxing yes this is the level of the film and also potentially the funniest joke into the entire film. never released in the cinema any were but released on to dvd although the quality of the picture on the dvd makes you think you are watching it on a bad vhs

the film starts off with some lowly chap called ricky who is living his dream of being an amateur boxer trying to never be negative by saying to everyone he sees 'hey dont be negative' and this is his catchphrase throughout the entire movie dont be negative no matter what is happening hey dont be negative if you think this was the biggest fault you will be totally wrong

the film makes no sense in any thing with poor jokes and just mind boggling ideas going through out with poor acting from start to finish will make you want to punch your head against a brick wall until you become unconscious, and judging via imdb it took the lead actor 3 years before he got any other form of a role again. but i guess he wasn't that negative about it.

it isnt just rocky they try spoofing in this oh no the scope of the writers is so broad they also trying and spoof the god father and general patton and loads of films in equally poor and bad ways. you wont laugh you will just sigh in despair as you realise you have wasted another minute of your life on this rubbish.

the lighting and sets in this are awful with most of the scenes seem to be filmed in darkness that makes you wonder if your tv has dies or something the production values are worse than a toddler trying to build the sets so is the script and the acting and of course the music this is over powering idiotic and garish 1980's electro rubbish that just makes you want to put the film on mute

overall this is a bad film and i mean a bad film not even bad in a funny way bad in ways that you could not think that films would sink to it is so bad this film doesn't even deserve a rating

Musicversally challenged - songs that are good in a 1 - 50 cross section

2009-11-17T23:12:00.000Z

15 - Meat Loaf - Paradise by the dashboard lights - yes the meat finally is emerging at the good end of the table and will he being seeing paradise at the end of this list who knows but this song is cool, and it takes you're mind to another place and something

14 - Alphabet - Fascination - nice little fun song that make's you want to sing along and dance to it more than a flying sandwich that is ordering you to boogie or die

13 - Queen - Dont stop me now - Im having such a good time now this is a song fast pact and action all the way good at the gym makes you run that faster and all that love this song cbbc used it for the trailers in 1993 xmas

12 - Pink - Just like a pill - yeah this is good, probably about drugs or something.

11 - Rhianna - Umbrella - ella ella ella this is an awesome song if you are working on a comedy song as you can fit so many lyrics into this song and its awesome just look what happened when steve mclarren got the sack

Musicversally challenged best 50 songs god knows what number

2009-11-16T22:04:00.001Z

20 - David Bowie - Life on mars - yeah this song reminds me of space and the world out there and life in general its a pretty deep song so yeah well done on getting number 20

19 Bryan Adams - were gonna win - well one person who commented on yesterdays list is going to be happy again, i really like this song it really gets you read for competition and it is a song that the adrenaline makes rush through you.

18 - Morrissey - Irish Blood English Heart - not normally a fan of music like this but i did like this song the moment i heard it on a free cd from the times i knew it was good got a nice political undertones to it and it says someone's feelings at the time

17 - Snow Patrol - Run - this again is a song that my lisit so far would not indicate that i would like but i do, light up light up as if you have a choice good song

16 - Monty Python - I'm a lumberjack - a nice silly song here good fun to sing a long to and just have all types of silliness associated with it makes you want to hit some one with a trout

Doctor who the end of time trailer

2009-11-16T00:06:00.001Z

I thought i would do a special review of the trailer with all the spoiler's goodness in side from what the trailer has told me.

we first of all see the master ( john simm) laughing in an traditional evil master manor, we also see clips of the master now with bleach blonde hair and then also appearing to switch his skin to show his skelleton very similar to the look he had in the deadly assassin in the 70's.

other facts from this trailer is that the ood are back but have a different shaped head also they have been having bad dreams uh oh if the ood are getting scared by something its time to hide again.

Donna is in this great i will have something to hate in this episode and wilf is also in this so something to cheer when he interrupts donna. and the doctor is now convinced he is going to die proberbly ate some of donna's food.

heres the trailer for you to see for your self

Doctor Who the Waters of Mars - spoilers

2009-11-15T23:59:00.000Z

The waters of mars was the second of David Tennants last specials as the doctor, this epsiode was set on mars with the occasional scene on earth also staring Lindsay Duncan as the main other lead in this episode it is set on the first human colony on mars called Bowie 1 ( yes as in david Bowie )

I found the first 20 or so minutes of this episode quite slow and unremarkable to be honest they were mainly setting things up but it didn't seem to be that remarkable but however once this initial phase had past the episode seemed to pick up. there was some focus on the monsters which were a bit average in my opinions there were some nice links made with the ice warriors with the doctor even speaking north Martian at one point.

there was a lot of moral question thrown up at one point about should the doctor help this was very reminiscent of the fires of pompeii if the doctor should help people but this time it was on a much bigger scale and there were some great scene and well acted from Tennant when he knew he could help but because of the way time works couldn't help and so you saw this whole survivors guilt that was very reminiscent of how the doctor felt about the time lords he could help but he cant, i really did enjoy these scenes and thought the camera work here was brilliant. I really liked the fact that they emphasised the point that Tennant couldn't help.

I knew that RTD would write it in that the doctor would help as in his mind he always has to help when ever the doctor can however I didnt really imagine he would do it in the style that he did. He seemed to become aware of the power and in his mind he switched from the fact that he had lost and he was the last of the time lords and was in this victim like mentality to the fact that he and he alone had won the time war he then seemed to fill with power and was almost acting like the master i really liked this side of the doctor.

the episode climaxed with him rescuing the people who were meant to die but when lindsay duncan saw what the doctor had become she choose to spite him by choosing to end her own life this lead to the doctor to have a moment of crisis in which he saw an OOD then he jumped in the tardis and was off for his final adventure

overall after a slow start this episode soon added weight and lead up excellently to the final story / 2 specials. of which the first part is called the end of time. the set and acting for the main characters for the waters of mars was good mixed with some good camera work will give this an 8 / 10

Musicversally challenged the on going saga

2009-11-15T18:36:00.001Z

25 - Shakira - Whenever wherever - yeah this song was great when it came out and like a wine it has aged well as well

24 - Fight like apes - Jake Summers - I originally brought this album because of the bands name my mind was blown i was thinking of some monkey like wrestling but what i got was a good album with some like good songs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCNSoWSvyX4

23 - Lady gaga - Just Dance - yeah just dance song makes you want to do its like ronseal paint it does exactly what it says on the tin.

22 - Bryan Adams - Summer of 69 - yeah a good song nice atmosphere
and everything yeah

21 - Kelly Clarkson - Behind those hazel eyes -love this song of hers
probably my favourite one of her songs i can probably sing all the words
of it

Musicversally challenged top 50 songs the on going saga continues

2009-11-14T11:33:00.000Z

30 - Elvis Costello - Oliver's Army - always liked this song mainly due to the name of the song and it always reminds me of me if only i had an army well maybe in the future.

29 - The Rocky Horror show - lets do the TIMEWARP - good fun song with loads of dampness and mad capness which are all good points for me when i listen to a new song

28 - Basket case - Greenday - yeah this song probably reminds me of me as sometimes i can be a bit of a basket case most of the time

27 - The Killers - Somebody told me - nice bouncy type of song also dr karl out of neighbours likes it

26 - Amy Macdonald - Mr Rock and Roll - I dont know why Amy Macdonald hasnt got more praise because i think she is great love her album and her songs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VJrwnKMdk4

Musicversally challenged best 50 songs part 4

2009-11-11T22:55:00.002Z

so onward and upward as we hit the fourth part of the musical saga that will surely be up there for an important day for humanity as when man invented the piano.

35 - Tim Russ - Kushangaza - amazing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz08KktAJq4

34 - Dire Straights- Brothers in arms - never really listened to this song before until i saw the episode of the west wing the two cathederals ( an awesome tv episode) the song really showed the emotion of the time and it is a really great song

33 - Pink - Don't Let me get me now this is one of those songs that i cant pretty much sing word for word thats how many times ive listened it i wasn't aware of it at first but then i was weird i knows.

32 Queen - Radio GaGA- radio gogo radio whats news someone still loves youuuuuuu. an awesome song always fin to sing along to also the rather dandy and fanciful lyrics make it great fun

31 - Alphabeat - Boyfriend - yes the great alphabeats first appearance in this mighty saga with their catchy song boy friend well here's the link for it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NOFVjjQ_2c

Modern Warefare 2 : Call of duty

2009-11-10T21:28:00.004Z

So once again another new year another world beating FPS the media hype informs me and so i gave in and brought a copy earlier today in currys, after asking in a 'independent games shop' near were i work and despite them having the posters about the game the man who owned the shop hadn't the faintest idea what i was talking about.

I have only really played this for about 2 and a half hours for the single player campaign cant be bothered for multi player yet.

the single player campaign seems similar to call of duty 4 following modern warfare and looking at things such as spying terrorism and political espionage how plausible this story line is in the really world i think is very unlikely but it makes a good story for a game. there seem to be a good range of environments in the game i think i have played a fraction of the game but have already been in the open in the middle of a barren snowy landscape. to the tight inner city landscape of rio which was really hard for me to fight through.

the game play is hardly anything revolutionary its a fps but it is by far and away the best fps on the market

Musicversally challenged best 50 songs

2009-11-09T22:18:00.004Z

that was a better tittle than my original one doh

40 - Charlotte Church - Call my name - yeah this is cool and a fun song with like a fast bit and a slow but, also the videos really cool

39 - Alice Cooper - schools out - A good rebelious song for one school finishes brings all those memories of when school finishes on

38 - Everybodys fool - evanescence - yeah i like this song well hence why its here, I like the main premise behind this song someone who is everyone's fool

37 - Great Big Sea - Ordinary Day - I originally saw this on a doctor who video on youtubes, its nice happy optomistic and maybe even a spot hyper song its really cool http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl6hrasp8wg

36 - Elton John - Saturday night - once again a nice fast song thats really good just listen to on

perhaps a Friday,

Music Stuff best 50 songs ever

2009-11-08T18:48:00.003Z

45 - Blondie - Maria - yeah I like this song good one to sing along didnt realise it was blondie singing this when i first heared it always thought it was someone else

44 - Livin on a Prayer- Bon jovi - a good song to sing a long to and shout to also a good song to parody

43 - 3 lions on a shirt- the lightning seeds & baddel & skinner - ultimate football song simple as awesome always listen to it on the way to matches

42- - William Shatner - Common people now you cant say this is not better than the original maybe due to the awesome musical prowess of the shatner

41- Kelly Clarkson - since you've been gone - a nice good catchy pop song

Charlton V Northwich

2009-11-08T16:20:00.003Z

So i have just finished watching one of the worst performances that Charlton have ever produced in the FA cup. fair play to northwich they totally deserved the win and should have won by 2 or 3 goals to be honest.

even going into this match I was always aware that charlton could quite easily not get a result up north and i was proved right from the start we were very poor and showed little creativity or attack minded prowess. we started the game 4-5-1 which is an utter disgrace against a non league club . and then northwich began to be all over charlton. at first I thought this would just be a phase were the plucky non league club would take it to the opposition however this spell seemed to last 75 mins.

with the game going own it was northwhich who made the attacking plays causing charlton to constantly scramble the ball off their own goal line with northwhich having a series of 4 chances in a row to score in a quick session. the game continued and soon became more and more hot tempered due to charltons frustration with the way the game was going . northwhich looked ever deadly with their long range throws.

the game for the second half started off in a bad tempered way with mcleod elbowing a northwhich player and should have been sent off straight away. still the northwhich attack came and they were once again constantly unlucky.

it should be noted that when charlton switched to 4-4-2 we did begin to look a bit better but still 2nd best to northwhich it was at this point that they scored due to poor goalkeeping from randolph who failed to make the right decision. after that we were never going to score.

over all this is proof why parkinson is pony and should be sacked awful manage i wpould rather have alan mullery back.

Randolph - 4

Omozuzi - 4
Dailly - 7
Sodje - 6
Youga - 5
Sam - 2
Racon - 3
Semedo - 4
Bailey - 4
Shelvey - 4
McLeod - 1

Parkinson - 0

ref -9

V for Vendetta

2009-11-05T18:41:00.003Z

The film that appears to be a cross between the Orwellian nightmare of 1984 with guy Fawkes , based originally on the comics it looks at a totalitarian Britian in which some bloke called V has to 'fight fight fight fight for this love' that's right the love of freedom. yeah its an interesting concept. the film its self tries to look at a whole range of issues from terrorism, homosexuality, oppressive states Propaganda and much more.

the film its self was good the sets and visuals looked nice mostly although i didn't like the fascist parties logos . one of the main problems i had with the film was V i couldn't really understand him that well and i often thought they tried some other the top fight scenes to remove some character development and there were some elements of his personality i didnt like/ understand such as his love of that music and watching 1950's film. they should have made his character more darker.

However i did like most of the other characters such as stephen frys one and john hurts natalie portmans was ok.

the whole film was a build up from the start of the final scene with the protests out side parliament, i refuse to believe that there wasn't a trigger happy general who wouldn't have ordered to fire on the masses , the ending was a bit predictable as soon as you saw it was a film that was based on guy fawkes.

so overall i thought the themes they explored was often interesting and engaging i just wish the overall plot had been a bit better 7.5/10

THE MUSICAL EXTRAVIGANZA OF THE DECADE

2009-11-04T18:11:00.003Z

or also known as my top 50 songs i was bored at work so jotted them down on a bit of paper i know i have missed some songs but screw it this is the best i can do i cant be bothered to put up the youtube videos it seems to much effort

50 - Fleet wood mac go your own way - yeah i like this you can sing a long to it im not to sure on the words but is a fun song

49 - Subtle sexuality - male prima Donna this is a gimick song as I have been listening to it loads made by the people who made the office proberbly wont be in this list in a years time you really lose what the song is about with out the full video but NBC are being idiots and removing it from youtube

48 - Call me Franz ferdinand - a cover on the great blondie song but also this version seems to have some part of the song that reminds me of the doctor who theme tune huzzar

47 - not a dry eye in the house - Meat loaf - awesome song

46 - kate nash - florescent adolescent - cover of the artic monkies song she seems to do this justice i like the way she talks really fast in this

that's all for now

Star trek Voyager - Favoirte son

2009-11-03T22:46:00.003Z

I read in a magazine over the weekend that this is the worst episode of voyager EVER which is a pretty bold statement to made considering the amount of rubbish that was produced and it just so happens that I am lucky enough to own season 3 of voyager ( the only voyager season i own ) so lucky me as i spent 40 mins this evening watching this episode

so what is this episode about well to sum it up in one sentance

Harry Kim turns into an alien refuses to have sex with hot aliens and spends 5 mins beating up women and then escapes.

if that hasnt made you loose what respect for the fresh faced young ensign nothing will, so yes that's the story harry starts getting 'gut feelings' wanting him to go home he finds a planet beams down gets some weird head tattoo and then starts running away from every attractive woman he sees . yes its that bad im trying to think of a redeeming quality of this the one line jokes they make are bad to an extreme level from the moment chackotay says ' what's you're next trick pulling a shuttle craft out of your hat' and then the episode ends in a similarly pathetic attempt of humour when Neelix pinches kims face and says 'well i like our young ensign' and walks off.

there is no redeeming quality to this episode well maybe Chackotay being limited to what feels like 2 lines is a good point i suppose but its like being told you don't have a cold because you have to have your leg chopped off.

this is an awful awful episode i think there are worse out there but the fact that they give harry kim an entire episode and gives him no character development except saying to Paris i wish i was like you tom ' 1/10

Impressions - bbc1

2009-11-03T18:37:00.004Z

so another new impression show is out and naturally enjoying this form of comedy i decided to give it a view starting jon Culshaw ( dead ringers) and Debra Stephenson.

first of all with some positives a lot of the looks of the impressions and sounds are good some of the impressions are very good technically however alas this is were the good parts end often the impressions are more initiating than the real life counterparts Davina Mccall being a prime example of this also it does not seem that a single sketch seems to last more than 2 mins its like an impression show in terms of timings for ADHD i know and can appreciate some short sketches but when you equate that to a 30 min show you have 15 sketches that is to much.

The jokes and sketches are mostly predictable and not that funny with only one at the end making me want to re watch ( gene Hunt in the 18th century ) the rest i was counting down for it to end not caring or just roling my eyes at the stupidity of it also some of the jokes were quite vicious but not in a funny way i am in no means a fan of micheal Mcintire or Eamonn Holmes but some of the things they did to them in this episode went just to far.

overall i feel that if the joke writers improve or they get some new ones then this could be good as they have the impressions and looks right it is just the funny bits that are lacking so as a result

3/10

Smackdown V raw 2010 review

2009-11-01T20:06:00.002Z

as annual as leaves falling off trees is the arrival of another smackdown v raw game i think this must be the 10th year of these games, and if you were wondering smackdown 2 was my favourite,

so whats this new one like is it that much of an improvement of last years disapointing article well. short answer yes.

looking at the game some of the modes are very similar to last years with the road to wrestlemania storys being the main modes were you talk to other wrestlers and there are linear story lines, also this year the usual custom modes are back such as create a wrestler which has changed a bit i guess but nothing to dramatic. also this year there are some new modes such as create a story line mode were surprisingly you create storyline's who would have thought. another good improvement for this year is the addition to be able to download superstars and sotrylines created by other users for free for example i downloaded a story line about JR having a feud with Cole.

In terms of game play there is one thing that has really wound me up and that is they have moved the bar at the top of the screen to tell you how close you are to get your finisher/special and instead they have put a half circle round the wrestler you are and when you are at the finisher stage you get a flashing red line all down the bottom, just bring the bar back. also there seems to be an almost unfinished quality to this game that really disapoints me for example i was in the mickie james road to wrestlemania story line and all the commentary for a one on one womens match is littered with him's and he's instead of her's and she's for example i heard 'mickie james is reallying hitting him (maryse) hard' its these little that really brings the game down, there are some things i know they could not have possibly known such as Mr Kenedey would be leaving as suddenly as he did but really JBL still a member of the active roster ? he quit in march thats 6 months ago if you want to keep him in make him a legend character or something. also there are some minor graphical glitches that just make the game feel bad.

however i think overall the game is a lot better than last years offering, they seemed to try and have slowed it down to reflect more of the WWE's wrestling style for an average match, the create a story line mode is in great depth and looks like the sort of thing that if you had the time with this it could really be beneficial however unfortunately i feel i wont have the time to do this justice. the achievements are farely simple to achieve if you have the time to put into the game you could get 1000 and they have gone into a lot more depth into areas and it does feel that they have taken on board some of the feedback from last years game

overall if i had pais £40 for this i would have felt ripped off however since i paid £25 for this i feel that this was good value its one of those sorts of games don't pay the full rrp wait till it comes down in a sale or something. i would give this a 6.75/10

4400 season 2 review

2009-10-28T23:21:00.003Z

so on goes the long winding scifi series that is the 4400, and this is the series were they try and step away from the X files vibe that they had in season one and then they go into the more bizarre and even though the seasons are normally short (13 episodes ) you go through a hell of a journey.

one of the highlights of this series was the introduction of the most versatile acotr in the world i bring you the coombs yes the Jeffrey Combs playing Dr Kevin Burkhoff also we see summer glau in an episode as well. but this series seems to have been divided in two one were it feels like a continuations from season 1 then suddenly we seemed to get a lot more complex episodes for example one were tom gets caught in some woman's imagination ( the same women he would later marry), however the main story arc of the second season was who shoot Jordan collier and how did they do it and why and who sent them to do it well it was toms son who killed him but at the end of season 2 what do we see jordan collier emerging as a messiah like character as he appears out of the sea reborn

there is also the usual distrust of the government as was in vouge of the time with the government injecting the 4400's with a drug to stop their powers growing called promicin to stop their powers well now there powers have been properly unleashed i wonder what will happen next.

overall this was better than series 1 and you can see how this is going but there is nothing special a solid 7

NFL at Wembley

2009-10-26T23:06:00.005Z

so this was my first ever NFL match of any type that I have watched in the flesh, the day started off with meeting some new England fan at Bexleyheath station he had flown all the way from Boston to watch this match wow that is dedication hi 'Bill if you are reading, after traversing the london tube station we arrived.

I must say i was impressed by it all as this was also my first time at the new Wembley so was nice to walk from the station meet the NFL commissioner en route then i was amazed by the view of the stadium loved my seats we seemed to be able to see everything .

the pre match spectacle was really good much better than what we are used to at football the whole musician anthems yes we didn't boo the american one see it can be done other football fans, and the British anthem was sung by the delightful katherine jenkins the cheerleaders also put on a good pre game show with Calvin harris singing two songs, on a side note being able to drink beer in the stands of a sporting event was cool.

the game its self wont be seen as a classic or anything but this was not really the point the funtivity of being there is what made it it was an awesome experience in an awesome stadium and am hoping to go back to Wembley next year

Musicversally challenged

2009-10-21T19:36:00.002+01:00

ive been on a bit of Us office and australian politics binge lately so these have influenced me but bad news for music fans as alphabeats new album has been pushed back to 2010 so pick up the single of the spell now to keep the dream alive i know i have

Looking for Eric

2009-10-18T14:22:00.003+01:00

A Film featuring Eric Cantona playing him self wow as soon as I heard the film had come into existence i knew i had to watch it at some point and thanks to love film the blu ray of this arrived through the post. if you have guessed this film features the footballer Eric Cantona former man utd player.

the basic plot of this film appears pretty simple at first the main character also called eric begins having a nervous breakdown and starts Imagining Cantona who gives him advise on how he is living his life etc so i thought this would be the entire plot of the main film however an hour into the film it seems to take a turn and becoming a part social commentary on society especially gang culture as erics son falls in with a band crowd, it also looks at the issue of mental health and how some people cope with it and how it effected people in the past, as well as some other themes such as friendship and family are played in this film,

Some of the bits with cantona i do find some of the best in the film maybe its i just find cantona really cool and love listening to some of the cryptic riddles that he tries to give out in similar vein to when the seagulls follow the traller, if you are expecting a football film this isnt really it for you as there are occasionally references to football such as 'what was your best moment for man utd' but that is realistically the limit it is, I did really enjoy the end of the film not to spoil it much for you it involves 500 odd people dressed up as cantona smashing a house up.

over all i would say this is a good film especially if you like eric cantona, it does look at some Issues in society and all that, i would give this a solid B

Romulan Ale

2009-10-17T18:55:00.003+01:00

When i was up in london the other day i past bye a shop selling unusual food and drink from all round the world one of the things i saw was Romulan ale being a star trek fan i thought i had to try this although i was kind of disappointed that this was not an alcoholic beverage, so alas no scenes from star trek VI for me when they all get hammered after drinking it and chekov complains about his hangover, and seeing as this is illegal in the stare trek world in 2280 i thought i might as well start

this tastes like most energy drinks that i have had in my life maybe a bit sweater and i get a tang of almost licorice in the back of my mouth but they thing that is most awesome about it like the tv series this is blue damm right it is .

to be honest if this wasnt branded in star trek stuff i wouldn't have bought it and tried it but as it was i did buy it and drunk it, now if only someone would make some Klingon Blood wine or some Cardassian Kanar

Veronica Mars season 3 Review

2009-10-13T20:02:00.005+01:00

So this is it the end of Veronica mars in tv form the tv series ended with the thrid season a bit to short for my liking but it was good while it was lasting once again this series have the same premise of the previous with some longer story arcs except for the final six episodes why i hear you ask well.

Well the reason the story arc ended with 6 episodes to go was because the network put it on hold what for to stop veronica mars it had to be a high quality tv show maybe they had the rights to the wire or something oh no somthing much worse ive hated these people for a long time now i have a valid reason the show was put on a hiatus and stoped the story arc with 6 episodes to go because the FUCKING PUSSY CAT DOLLS had a reality tv show out searching for the next pussy cat doll oh yes now i have a valid reason to hate this band you evil klingons .

but back to the story basically there are two story lines on going I found the 'murder' storyline to be the more interesting of the two, the series seems to be a bit different now with veronica now at university so as a result you lose some of her fighting against the cliques of the high school as a result but she has to grow up it cant be based there forever most of the other characters are still in the series as well as one or two new characters. I still feel it works overall, also I am kind of pleased the last episode finished in the way it did i dont think the series would have been right if at the end everyone had been happy and smiling and laughing. Kirsten Bell is her usual hot self in this which is always a factor for watching this and she has an array of veronica mars's pop culture references and one liners which are all crucial factors to the show to make it a Success

overall perhaps due to the god damm pussy cat dolls this series was a bit poorer than the other two but i wouldnt say it was in any dramatic way and it is still very watachable and enjoyable there was a trailer made for the proposed season 4 so we get some kind of an idea what the series could have become from this, overall I give this series a B+

Rendezvous with Rama

2009-10-10T21:58:00.003+01:00

I picked up this book about 2-3 weeks ago in forbidden planet, i was interested in the idea of first contact between humans and aliens although i was kind of expecting a clinched story of how aliens land in the middle of a major city how wrong I was.

the story its self takes place in about 200 years into our future when humanity does have some some space travel although it is rather limited to our own solar system, we have several different colonies in the system but that's about it, when one day one of the the radar systems detecting asteroids detects an unusual one, it is latter determined that this is not an asteroid but something else to which the spaceship endeavour is sent to investigate.

I wont spoil the story by telling you who what and were and other things that happened but needless to say that it is a very good story to read . the book structure contains quite short chapters something that which i prefer as they are better to read when on the train and you can normally read a chapter between stations.

the book its self is a very different take on first contact and one of many potential scenarios that could happen, this book is really awesome i think it is one of the best sci fi books that i have read of all time this gets an A

Podcast reviews

2009-10-09T19:01:00.004+01:00

So I have been very bored at work this week and seeing as the office is totally silent and appears people are to scared to speak i have been listening to plenty of podcasts to be honest i have listened to podcasts for years but only came up with the idea now to reviews them.

First up we have the Dad's army podcast, as a huge fan of dads army i was very pleased to find out that there was a Dad's army podcast out on the market, and it was in the top 100 of tv & film podcasts on itunes and i can see why. A very good and knowledgeable host to the show does the show justice also an added bonus he seems to be able to talk to people who were in the show such as Frank Williams Recently Aka the Reverend Timothy Farthing which is always an added bonus for any fan podcast to have, this podcast has very few downsides if at all, the adverts can be irritating as they seem placed in the wrong position but it depends how much something like that would irritate you.

Tripple J podcast with Ross and terri - ok i know that sounds a bit vague but there were 2 short series of podcasts made in 2006-2007 a totally of 20 episodes featuring the comedian ross noble now how much you enjoy this podcast depends on how funny you find ross noble and his surrealist humour personally I do so i loved this as there are all sorts of bizarre and totally mind boggling for example they get a chicken in the studio for one day who only has one eye, I cant even begin to describe how many times i have grinned and chuckled like an idiot on the trian listening to this podcast also they weigh in at around 90+mins so you get a hell of a lot of material to listen to so that should last you for a while!

The final podcast i shall be reviewing today is The Bugle - featuring John Oliver most known for his appearances on the daily show and Andy Zaltsman who i have never seen before and have only ever seen him on tv once and that was newsnight (a long long long story), once again another comedy based podcast 'oh my' i do like a chuckle so this takes a rather comical, there are several reoccurring themes such as the constant amusement Hugo Chavez and the iranian president ( yes i do know his name im just not going to attempt to spell it) bring to the world of politics with their outrageous policies and statements, with added elements of bullsh*t story lines mostly when andy goes off on a long winded anecdote which are very funny, they also have had some regular sections such as hotties from history ( in which Florence nightingale & and Joanna the mad won) and the audio cryptic crossword yes a whole crossword the same crossword that was discribed as by john oliver '"I see the glorious history of the Audio Cryptic Crossword as I see the glorious history of the Third Reich—a terrible idea that was rammed down peoples throats for far too long.'

So there you have it 3 podcasts go off and enjoy if you want im going to carry on listening

Cyder reviews

2009-10-07T19:35:00.004+01:00

So this time in the long awaited sequal to the cyder review series i have some local welsh cyders or as the welsh like to call it Seider oh and a gold star to the person who can guess what i was watching on tv when i was drinking these.

first one is called Oakwood, i really enjoyed this cyder it had a nice woody after-taste, which at

time reminded me of a nice bit of smoked ham which i know is a weird description of a bit of cyder but that's what my mind though

of at first. it comes in at 4.9% alchol i found this nice and refreshing and quite crisp with an ease to drink quality to its self and relativity light, and quite strong for just the one off bottle although the label looks quite boreing and it really isnt imaginative just putting a picture of an apple on the bottle im giving this a 9/10.

now for the next cyder is called lancelot

and it has a much better bottle and picture on it than Oakwood, however this is the end of were i feel Lancelot is better, it looks a hell of a lot more denser than oakwood or most other cyders however i was surprised when drinking it as it was quiet more fluid than i expected, it had a very dry after taste and it was the sort of cyder that you have to sip very slowly i think it took me around an hour to finish this off, and it had a very strong aroma to it. weighing in at 8% this has to be the most confusing cyder i have ever drunk every told me this would be heavy but it wasnt my mind just couldn't get round it but i didnt really enjoy the taste much ether 5/10

Stargate universe

2009-10-06T21:11:00.003+01:00

so this is the 3rd incarnation of the stargate franchise building up on the SG1 series and the stargate atlantis, although this time they have tried something a little different rather than the usual team going off exploring an episode then coming back to base. this is about a group of people due to events have been trapped on the other side of the universe and they are trying to survive and find their way home remind you of anything ? Voyager or Battlestar.

so this version stars robbie carlyle and he is the only member of the cast i have even heard of going into this, the series does appear a bit clinched in terms of characters and who they are they have the strict military figure the other the top overweight geek who got onto it by beating a computer game, the women in it are rather quiet or medics. so its rather predictable scifi in that case

the actual plot of the show at the start looks like them trying to get home and trying to make their old ship that they landed in work and combine that with the inner conflicts of the ship with people with diffrent ideas and views on what should happen and how things should be run i tell you what if mckay was on that ship it would have been home within 20 mins into the pilot. i can already tell in one episode at least in the series the geek is going to do some fuck up and cause the ship about to crash.

i found the pilot confusing and often disorientating with flashbacks but due to the nature of their sets i was often confused to what was meant to be taking place when.

this was interesting and i am going to watch it properly all the way through to see how it develops give it a go

Marie Antoinette - Review

2009-10-05T22:32:00.004+01:00

I wonder what ever could have forced me to review this film is it due to my love of the pre revolutionary france, the intertwining social complexities of the socioty of the time or is it perhaps Kirsten Dunst who knows.

the entire film doesnt have a standard storyline and is more of a biopic of her life with what i think would be fairly discribed as having a modern twist to it with Marie Antoinette being portrayed as the paris hilton of the 18th century buying things at will, steve coogan is also in this what real confused me in this are the characters accents they seem to change so much one minute i am hearing an attempted french accent the next back into an american accent topped with steve coogans accent doesn't really make you believe that this is as accurate as it could be

to be honest there seems such little dialogue in this film i do believe you could watch the first half an hour in mute and still know what was going on . you could say that the costume designers and set makers really did do a good job at trying to make the place look like france even if some other areas did fail in a way.

overall it was entertaining i suppose

Doctor Who Patient Zero Review

2009-10-04T00:28:00.003+01:00

I downloaded this audio book off the big finish

it has colin baker as the 6th doctor with the big finish audio created companion Charlie who came 4th in my top 5 doctor who companions of all time a couple of weeks ago. well as you can tell from the picture right on the side those pesky pepper pots are back in this audio adventure. it continues in the story arc in which charlie got lost from the 8th doctor and found the 6th one as he is an earlier regeneration he has no memory of him but she has a memory of him. there are some elements of this story that does make me believe that this is the first part of a 3 part story with certain themes

ok so this story is charlie gets ill one day she soon slips into a coma were she starts hearing someone and talking to them, while this is going on the doctor goes to some remote part of the galaxy to find a cure in a place which houses all viruses etc, gradually the daleks invade and try and take over with charlie now being replaced with the 'friend' she had in the tardis leads to a big climax in the end involving all the usual key element s especially when the daleks are involved.

over all this is a good entertaining story to listen to 6th and charlie are one of my favorite companion doctor combinations and it still works in this, there are two more in this series which i will try and get round to listen to as a result of this im going to give this a B+

Fifa 10

2009-10-01T20:18:00.003+01:00

so i picked up this game around 5 hours ago and i thought i would give a mini review with my impressions of the game in.

so it continues improving the game were 09 left off with slightly sharper graphics were the game really improves is the game mechanics, i often found that defending felt easier more natural were as attacking seems to have become a lot more harder as now you get some beast of a centre back being able to knock you off the ball with relative ease unless you have Heskey in your side, the teams are pretty much the same as last year although i felt alot of the player have had some of there rating reduced like i think i have only so far seen on player rated 90+ the rest seem to be around 87's. i have tried the set piece creator it is interesting i just need to implement it into a match, manager mode has been added in a lot more depth no longer can i sign random players because i have the money which will make the game more challenging

other things that i have noticed is that the way referees give cards out seems to have changed perhaps worse for instance i got tackled in the box from behind got the penalty. but the ref failed to give the player even a yellow card which left me a bit confused, also online there is a levels system which i suppose will make it more competitive online although i fear people will just get obsessed with what level they are playing as real madrid all the time oh yes they are the new barca prepare your self. on another note about teams who ever did the leeds team is mad they have been rated better that i would guess at least 50% of the championship maddness they aren't that good

Doctor Who Inferno

2009-10-01T12:26:00.003+01:00

This has often been deemed by fans as one of Pertwees best stories in Doctor who, it recently came 32nd out of all doctor who stories.

the premise of the story is that there is some scientist who is trying to drill a hole into the earths crust to get some gas and energy to stop us being reliant on oil ( almost sounds like an idea for new who stories) although I still have no idea what sort of scientist would think drilling through the earth's core would be safe at all, in the mean time the doctor is trying to warn people of the dangers there is some scientist who is trying to get the drill to go faster than normal and wants to sabotage the computer so he can drill i dont understand this bit what is an extra 5 hours going to make ? and there is some green goo which infects people and then turns them into some monster type thing,

suddenly the doctor tries testing out his tardis control and it sends him into a parallel dimension where the same thing is happening with the drilling only they are about 10 hours a head of our universe and they are also drilling to the centre of the earth what are the odds of that but to compound it the entire UK is different now what appears to be a fascist state ruled over by a dictator ( that some fans have theorised is an evil doctor from this universe ). thats the one thing that always bothers me about parallel universe episodes is that everyone is still around and working in almost the same positions as they are in our universe the only things that seem to change are the women had a different hair style and the men seemed to have a different beard or scar on their cheek. and the same events happen here that the drill destroys the earth in that universe and the doctor manages to escape and he has to thwart the attempt in our universe to which he does hurray.

the story could have been done with out the parallel universe stuff i feel, but saying that the story was engaging and engrossing in parts it is a very hallmark of the 1970's with all the social roles in the story with the upper class man who is in control's a figure head for the public while the scientist is more middle class, and some of the people who do maintenance appear working class while the woman are mainly assistants which is quiet amusing looking back now. overall i will give this story a B