Entertainment

Went and saw Beowulf tonight. I had watched the trailers or it and didn’t really think much of it. Anyway, with not much else to do at 8:50pm on a Saturday night I decided to go.

Turns out that it wasn’t too bad at all. Perhaps my ‘not expecting anything great’ attitude helped make it more enjoyable, but overall I found it quite entertaining and there was an actual story involved.

The animation was very cool as well. Some sections had me wondering if the images were actual footage of the actors or just animated.

It ended with an obvious sequel lead-in, but I felt like enough had been accomplished during the film that the ‘to be continued’ feel at the end wasn’t at all disappointing.

I’d recommend it for people who like swords / demons / dragons.

I bought a Zelda walkthrough book the other week at [EB](http://www.ebgames.com.au/). It’s for the Wii version of [Twilight Princess](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Twilight_Princess) so I figured it would be interesting to read. I had played up to the third dungeon in Twilight Princess, but found out from the book that I had missed a LOT of stuff. Not just a small thing here and there, but large sections and new moves and stuff. I thought I was progressing pretty well, but I guess not.

Traditionally I’ve always thought of walkthrough guides as cheating, but I guess it comes down to how exactly you use the book / guide. I decided to delete my current game and start over again, but this time before leaving a particular level / zone, I’ll check the book to make sure I haven’t missed anything. I figure this isn’t really cheating because I’m playing the game myself, but just making sure I don’t waste time having to come back for bits I miss. In the long run I think it’s going to save me some time.

My Wii hasn’t seen much play time recently. Melanie logs on to the ‘Wii Vote’ channel every few days and does the votes and enters a question. We haven’t yet had one of our submitted questions used, but I figure there must be thousands and thousands of questions submitted.

I started Playing [Ultimate Alliance](http://www.marvelultimatealliance.com/) again, this time actually doing the proper moves and not just swinging the controls around and hoping for the best. It actually makes the game a lot better.

There hasn’t really been any new releases for the Wii that have taken my fancy. [Mortal Kombat Armageddon](http://mkarmageddon.com/) looks interesting, but I’ll wait and see. I’ve been tempted to get a mod chip for my Wii, but I’m really not game enough to pull my Wii apart and solder it in.

It’s still a fun device though and I’m not really bored of the games I have yet.

I’ve always had a small interest in radio controlled cars. Last one I had was a Tandy one that got broken one day and we could never find parts to fix it. I started reading up on them again recently and was quite amazed at how advanced they are now. You can get nitro fuel based cars, with small little fuel motors in them, 2wd or 4wd, disc brakes and more.
I went and checked out a local hobby shop here in Rocky ([Ultra Hobbies](http://ultrahobbies.com.au/store/)), and found that they actually sell them with quite a good range of ready to run (RTR) cars and numerous spare parts.

I asked the guy behind the counter when the local RC club meets and he gave me the dates for the next meeting. I remember going to watch both the off-road and on-road cars before but somewhere along the line I forgot about it. Anyway, I might go check it out the next time they meet.

There seems to be 3 main classes of cars. On-Road, which is pretty self explanatory, Off-Road “buggies” and Off-Road “Truggies”. The main difference between “buggies” and “truggies” seems to be the look of the car. “Buggies” tend to have smaller wheels at the front, and are lower to the ground. “Truggies” seem to be a mutation of the old style “Monster Trucks” + “Buggy”, being lower to the ground then a monster truck but higher then a buggy.

The “truggy” seems to be a lot more fun as it can pretty much go anywhere due to the extra height and it also has the speed of a traditional “buggy”.

Most of the guys run [Jammin' X1CRT trucks](http://www.jamminproducts.com/x1crt.htm) and I’ve done a bit of reading about them. A base ready to run system costs around $850 AUD, which seems to include everything you need to get up and racing. This model car seems to have a pretty big following so there are a wide selection of spare parts and also upgrade pieces.

A quick youtube search brings up some good [results](http://youtube.com/results?search_query=x1crt&search=Search) and shows how well the little cars run on all sorts of surfaces.

I’m not sure yet if I’ll end up getting one or not. I’ll probably go to a few race meetings and see if my interest remains. I think it might be something fun to do that is out of the house and away from the computer.

So yeah, the only way I could have already seen the Heroes season final here in Australia is from watching a downloaded copy. The current episode being aired in Australia is somewhere around episode 16 / 17 which is pretty decent compared to other TV shows, but still pretty bad.

I remember reading some kind of survey done by someone, that I could probably find if I googled but don’t feel like it at the moment… anyway… the survey basically showed that Australian people downloaded the most TV shows. This doesn’t really surprise me considering the crappy TV programming that happens here in Australia.

For starters, we get TV shows weeks after they air in the US. Heck, sometimes we are seasons behind what is showing in the US. Add to that the fact that the TV channels over here have a great habit of shuffling up the episodes, showing part of a season then part of an older season then the rest of the new season or just generally screwing up the flow of the program by not even showing it one week. It really makes it hard to watch a TV show and follow the season through.

Also, forget about discussing the TV show on many of the Internet forums. Chances are the people in the US are heaps ahead of us so they will be talking about stuff we have no idea about and end up ruining the ending anyway.

So yeah, I download TV shows, and I’ll probably continue to do so until the Australian TV channels start doing things right.

This movie caught my eye in the dvd shop and after reading the back of it I decided it might be an interesting watch. Turns out it was. It’s basically a movie about the word ‘FUCK’. A word that has been around for centuries, used in many different ways.

The movie looks at the word from many different angles and provides a pretty decent history of the word while also debunking a lot of urban myths about it.

I find it interesting that a word, made up of 4 separate letters, can have such an effect on people ranging from extreme excitement through to insane violence. It’s funny how we, as human begins, associate certain feelings and emotions to words and phrases.

Personally, I don’t really find particular words offensive. Sure, when used to verbalise a certain emotion, the word may take a certain meaning depending on what I associate with that word. However, it’s more about what the person is trying to express, not the way they express it that I may find offensive.

I found the movie really interesting. Certainly made me think about how humans express themselves and how we associate emotions with words.

I’ve read a lot of comments about how bad and anti-climatic the Heroes season finale was. Personally I thought it was great. I think a lot of people were expecting some kind of uber fight between Peter and Syler, with both of them going at each other using their powers and one of them being defeated in some kind of huge season 1 climax. In reality, Hiro teleports in and stabs Syler, which may seem a but lack-lustre, but really that was all that was needed.

I think a major theme of the show from the start was Hiro’s journey and discovering his ‘destiny’. There was a point when he thought the sword was the key to his powers but in the end he discovers that he is the one who controls them and the sword is just a tool.

I liked how they actually tied up some loose ends. They could of quiet easily taken us to the start of the last fight scene and then thrown up a ‘To Be Continued…’ message, which would of annoyed me to no end. Instead, they followed it through and gave us an ending. I think the major problem were the expectations people had, and they didn’t just watch it to see what happened.

Who knows where the story will go now. It looks like Syler managed to drag himself away and get into the sewers, even though he had that strange eye thing happened and supposedly died. Did Peter really die? or can the healing power he absorbed from Claire actually help him survive, meaning that maybe only Nathan is really dead? What is up with Hiro getting tele-ported back to the future in the middle of some kind of battle between Japanese forces, is he really the hero that he read stories about as a kid?

So many questions left to be answered. Im glad the series ended like it did and I’m looking forward to it returning next year.

Watched the movie ["Grimm Love"](http://imdb.com/title/tt0448400/) on the weekend which is based on the true story of [Armin Meiwes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes), a German man who killed and ate another man after advertising on the Internet. The Wikipedia article linked above details the exact circumstances and is not really for the squeamish.

I find true stories like this both incredibly interesting and also extremely shocking. The human mind is indeed a strange thing and knowing that people are capable of things like this is sends shivers down my spine. I guess the thing that I find most amazing was the fact that someone willingly agreed to be killed and eaten. You obviously can’t class this as ‘normal’ human behaviour, so what made these two people act the way they did?

It’s not really a movie I would recommend everyone to watch. I don’t really classify it as a ‘horror’ movie in the traditional sense. Watching this and knowing in the back of my mind that it actually happened made me more dumbfounded then anything. As the movie unravelled I found myself questioning the motivations of both people involved. Why would people do this?

Overall, an interesting watch. Not something I’m likely to watch again, but it got me thinking and I like that about movies.

There have been rumours floating around for ages now about what [Blizzards](http://www.blizzard.com/) next gaming project will be. Most people are hoping for a new RTS game based on either the [Starcraft](http://www.blizzard.com/starcraft/) or [Diablo](http://www.blizzard.com/diablo2/) worlds. Unfortunately, it looks as though it may be another MMO (/groan). [Kotaku](http://kotaku.com/) recently posted about the rumours of a [Starcraft based MMO](http://kotaku.com/gaming/nooooooooooo%21/starcraft-mmo-coming-say-sources-257902.php) and judging by the comments to that post a lot of people don’t sound very impressed.

Personally, I can’t see a need for another MMO from blizzard at the moment. [World of Warcraft](http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/) is going fine and making Blizzard a truckload of money. The only reason I can see for Blizzard to turn the Starcraft world into an MMO would be to try to pull in all the fans of Starcraft who currently don’t play World of Warcraft. Why not just stick with a RTS based game? The world needs decent single person games (with multiplayer options), not more MMO’s.

Was only a matter of time I guess. Blizzard have teamed up with First National Bank of Omaha to create [World of Warcraft Visa cards](http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/visa/). It’s kind of amazing the impact that [World of Warcraft](http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/) is having on the world. The largest and biggest money making game of the decade and it just seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

How long before they customise it and allow you to get your personalised World of Warcraft character printed on the card?

Well christmas has been and gone. Was a good one though. no doubt about it. A few close family members came around and had lunch at Mum and Dad’s place. It was actually raining, which was weird for this time of year in Australia, but it made the baked dinner go down even better.

Was Harrys first christmas and will definitely be one of the more memorable ones considering there were no dramas.

Overall a pretty casual christmas, really awesome.

Posting from my Wii. Internet channel was released today and it works pretty well.
Typing with the Wiimote is pretty slow though

On the Dalby to Inverell leg of my trip home for xmas, the cassette player in my trusty stock standard [mazda](http://www.mazda.com.au/) cassette/radio player started playing up. If I put a tape in (or in this particular case, the cassette adaptor for my ipod) it would constantly switch sides. On a few occasions the tape even got stuck inside. I tried with a normal tape as well and the same thing happened.

So, just out of Dalby, with a good 4 hours left to drive I was stuck listening to whatever radio I could find. In a lot of areas I could tune into [Triple J](http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/) which was good, but definitely wasn’t a substitute for my trusty iPod.

Anyway, today Dad and I went down to the local [Super Cheap Auto](http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/) here in Inverell in search of a new stereo.

When it comes to audio equipment for the car, I am more of a practical person than an audiophile. If it plays what I want than I am happy. I have no real wish to have expensive speakers and sub-woofers and what-not. My only real concern was getting something that I could plug my iPod in to, preferably one with a 3.5mm stereo jack connection so I didn’t have to have a cassette player/adapter.

I hadn’t read up on stereos of anything, so I was actually pretty surprised to find one that did actually have a 3.5mm audio input jack right on the front panel. They had a few models there, but the Sony ones where the only ones with the audio input jack. The [JVC](http://www.jvc.com.au/) models said they were ‘iPod ready’, but I would have needed to buy a separate ‘iPod connection kit’ which ended up only having the iPod connector and not a standard 3.5mm plug. The [Kenwood](http://www.kenwood.com.au/) models mentioned nothing about ‘iPod connection’ or ‘aux input’ so they didn’t even get a look in.

In the end, after weighing up all the options, I went with a Sony CDX-GT250S. RRP $299.00, but I got it for $199.00. It supports all I want including:

* Support for CD/CDR
* Support for MP3/WMA
* AUX In

It doesn’t look too shabby either.

After getting it home, Dad helped me put it in. After a small hick-up with the front left speaker, it was working.

Overall I’m pretty happy with it. It looks cool in the dash of my car, it works well and it’s simple to connect my iPod to. I’m not sure what the general consensus is with [Sony XPlod](http://www.xplodsony.com/) systems and I don’t really care, as long as it plays my music I’ll be happy.

I’m a pro (1000+ skill level) at Tennis. Bowling I am around 850. The others (golf, baseball, boxing) I haven’t played enough to really get a decent skill rating.

Zelda is getting pretty good as well. I found it a bit slow at the start but it’s quiet enjoyable now. It’s amazing how well the control system works in Zelda. Hopefully other games that come out have the same amount of realism / control.

I brought it back home with me and so far Dad seems to like bowling. After 8 games he is already beating me. He really gets into it though

Mum has had 1 go, and seemed to get the hang of the controller pretty well. She even threw down a few strikes.

It’s still a lot of fun. It’s amazing how your wrist movement can affect the spin of the tennis ball / bowling ball. I actually work up quite a sweat when playing.

Should be good when others get back for xmas and we can arrange some tournaments

I’ve played [World of Warcraft](http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/) since closed beta. When the game was released I was at the shop first thing in the morning to pick up my pre-ordered copy and went about levelling up my characters.

2 years on and I took a ‘break’ from the game. I got sick of the mindless instance grinding, the repetitive end game, and in general the broken servers. It’s been maybe 6 months since I last played for any period of time. Sure I’ve logged in every few weeks to make sure everything is there, but I haven’t run any instances or what not.

I realised recently that I probably won’t ever play it again. It bores me silly now. Even the approaching [Burning Crusade](http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/) expansion release doesn’t really offer anything that I am overly interested in. In my experience, it’s just more of the same old grinding, farming and mindless quest doing.

Levelling from 60 to 70 might be fun. The new instances along the way may make the game a bit more interesting, but ultimately it’s going to be exactly the same at level 70 as it is currently at level 60. Mindless end game instance raiding, mindless farming and the same old ‘epics > skill’ metaphor that seems to be the driving force behind the game.

Recently a new patch has added a lot of ‘expansion ready’ content including new talent trees, arena pvp system, etc. Out of curiosity I logged in the other day and respec’d my 60′s, just to fiddle with the new talents trees. I even joined a few arena games to see what they are like. In the end I concluded that it’s still a waste of time.

2+ years on from release and the servers are still terrible. Constant server lag makes playing a total pain. Battleground queues are still insanely long. The new arena queues are better, but I think it’s only because the games are insanely fast since most people who pvp are fully epic’d out. I even got randomly booted off the server once while I was playing for no real reason.

So yeah, for me, World of Warcraft is pretty much a total waste of time now. Any new content being added is just the same old farm/grind that makes the game such a pain. I kind of hoped [Blizzard](http://www.blizzard.com/) could do more with World of Warcraft, since i really like the whole world/story behind it, but it doesn’t look like much is changing anytime soon.

I just wish Blizzard would go back to making off-line games. (Starcraft 2? Warcraft 4?) /sigh

No other PC games really spark my interest at the moment either except for [Spore](http://www.spore.com/), which looks totally awesome but isn’t due for release until sometime next year.

I pre-ordered my [Wii](http://wii.nintendo.com.au/) from [Target](http://www.target.com.au/) thinking it would be a rather painless process. The $600 of added coupons also helped in my decision.

I guess I should have known that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

(more…)

Melanie pitched in and helped me get a [Nintendo Wii](http://wii.nintendo.com/) as a late birthday / early xmas present. I pre-ordered from [Target](http://www.target.com.au/) in Rockhampton and after a bit of bungling on their behalf I was able to pick it up on release day.

It’s a lot of fun. The new controller makes the games really interactive. WiiSports is an awesome example of how gameplay > graphics, something SONY and Microsoft should really take notice of.

WiiSports is the most fun so far. It’s pretty amazing how well the controller responds. I find I’m better at tennis and bowling over golf, baseball and boxing.

Zelda seems like it should be pretty good as well.

I finally got around to watching Wolf Creek ([Official Site](http://www.wolfcreekthemovie.com/), [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Creek_%28film%29), [IMDb](http://imdb.com/title/tt0416315/)) today and it turned out pretty good.

The movie flows pretty well, but there were some sections where I just felt like there was meant to be more but for some reason they cut it out. It seems to end really fast and to be honest I was kind of expecting a bit more. I would have really liked to of seen more with the main male character. He doesn’t seem to do a great deal at all for some reason.

I think watching the ‘making of’ and reading up on all the hype before watching the actual movie affected my opinion as I pretty much knew what was going to happen before it did. Even so, I’m glad I did because in a way it opened my eyes to how low budget the film is and a lot of the thought process behind it.

Still, its a decent Aussie film which was made on a relatively low budget and it turned out decent. I recommend it if you like scary movies.

The annual Rockhampton ‘Fire in the Sky’ was on last night. For those unsure exactly what that is it’s basically a fireworks show down on the river.

They had the usual twilight markets running, although there wasn’t really that many actual markets there. Seems that the Sunday morning markets or heritage markets are a lot more popular for people selling stuff then the twilight ones. Anyway, Melanie and I went with Roland and Bec for a look.

Took us longer to get to the market area amongst the sea of people than it did to actually see all the markets. Never-mind though, Melanie likes browsing markets for bargains.

Whilst there we ran into Blair, Conner and Lee. We all grabbed a few steak burgers, which were really good as expected (what is it with steak burgers you get from shows like that? They are always so good!) then wandered around until we found a suitable piece of cement to stand on for the show. There was no chance of finding a seat.

The actual fireworks were really good. We were lucky enough to be standing in exactly the right spot to get firework bits blown on us from the wind. They weren’t hot or anything, you could just feel little pieces of stuff falling on your face when looking at the show.

After the fireworks ended, we stood around for a little bit hoping most of the crowd would slowly disappear. Walking back to the car was ok, i managed to find a decent park pretty close by which was good.

The actual drive home wasn’t as bad as i thought it would be either. I only got cut off once by some silly lady in a much smaller car.

So yeah, another successful fire in the sky!

*Image shamefully stolen from [Google images](http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=fireworks&btnG=Search+Images).

Went to see the [Borat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borat) movie on the weekend. Politically incorrect, offensive, degrading, racist and possibly morally wrong… it had it all, yet I found myself really enjoying it (Does that say something about my character? ).

Anyway, I guess it wasn’t the actual content that i found the most entertaining. I mean, sure most of the scenes are funny but I found it far more interesting to watch [Sacha Baron Cohen](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0056187/) play the role of Borat, especially in the interview scenarios he does.

I am not sure if the interviews in the movie are ‘real’ or staged, but you get the impression that they are real and the people totally believe that Borat is a real person. This could all be great acting on the behalf of the people involved, but it just felt more than a totally made up (and acted out) movie.

His response to questions, the questions he asks, the mannerism’s he shows, the way he acts around people. I find it all really interesting that someone could invent and play a character that well.

So yeah, Borat was a funny and interesting movie for me. I’m curious whether the DVD release will include scenes not shown in the movie, as there were quite a few scenes i watched on [google video](http://video.google.com/) and [YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/) that were not in the actual movie.

Who would have thought there would be another Rocky movie? I remember watching Rocky when i was a young kid. I cant remember exactly which Rocky it was at the time but since then I’ve watched them all (1 – 5) a few times.

They aren’t the best movies, but they are far from the worst either. A good ol’ underdog story.

I’ve watched the [new trailer](http://www.apple.com/trailers/mgm/rockybalboa/) a few times now. Not sure really how the movie will be. Chances are I’ll watch it though. The funny thing is, everyone already knows what’s going to happen.

Rocky will have to train up to compete in a fight that, it appears, he will have no chance of winning. He will probably get the crap beat out of him but through some miracle of the human spirit he will rise up and become victorious. Sound familiar? yeah, it’s the plot to all the other Rocky movies, but who cares… right?

I guess I hold off buying the DVD box set a while longer. At least until the extended, extra long, re-mastered, feature packed, DVD box set including the new Rocky 6 movie with extended features blah blah blah comes out.