Stargate: Universe

Robert Carlyle as Dr. Rush

I’m a major nerdo loser and as such I’ve always loved Stargate in both its original form and its spin-off, Stargate: Atlantis.  In comes the new series in the Stargate franchise, Stargate: Universe.  This series has taken a much grittier approach than it’s predecessors and has a couple of big names attached (Robert Carlyle and Lou Diamond Phillips).  Add to that the fact that there is no longer any other Stargate to satiate the fans and you have a recipe for a potentially successful show.

I should say that the show so far looks to be a little unsteady and if you are expecting to get into this one just be careful not to get your hopes up.  The acting isn’t brilliant (aside from Robert Carlyle, but even he is slightly off on occasion), the editing seems a little frenetic and tough to follow, and the plot is… well, slow.  Barely anything has truly happened in four episodes (counting the two hour premier as two episodes).  That being said, I’m willing to stick by this one and see where it goes – it does have a lot of potential but it has dauntingly huge shoes to fill so the ride from here could be bumpy.

FlashForward

FlashForward: Not a documentary

Shunned by some viewers for its casual disregard for realism (it’s a sci-fi about everyone in the world simultaneously passing out and having premonitions, come on people how much realism are you really after here?) I am taking the “lets wait and see” approach to this one as well.  Similar to Stargate: Universe it doesn’t exactly have a stellar array of actors, but the show’s premise alone is intriguing enough to impress and leave this observer wanting more.  If you are immediately drawn out of shows with bad acting and the occasional plot hole you might want to give this one a miss.  That being said, I’m in the school of people who think that many of the plot holes are actually deliberate mysteries waiting to be covered in later episodes.

At least do yourself a favour by giving the pilot episode a look.  The final scene alone will leave you with a near irresistible urge to find out what the fuck is going on.

Dollhouse

Eliza Dushku is hot and also an actor in Dollhouse

Okay so this one isn’t technically a brand new show, but season 2 is starting up and I’ve only just found out that the show even exists.  If you haven’t seen this show you should check out the first season and see what you think while the second season is still young.  The cast is fantastic and a little off-beat in that deliberate “we’re not taking ourselves seriously” kind of way.  On that subject, I think that is the main reason this show appeals to me.  It stays fairly light hearted while maintaining an uneasy edge to it that keeps you engaged and genuinely interested in what’s going to happen next.

The premise of this show is a little strange, and hard to wrap one’s head around since it just seems a little bit silly.  The “Dollhouse” is a place people go to have their memories wiped completely during a process whereby they are turned into “Actives”. These Actives are then like a blank slate (the show refers to this state as “tabula rasa”, a neat little nod to John Locke that makes incredible sense given the context) that can have any personality implanted into them, complete with memories and knowledge.  Rich folk then hire these Actives for various purposes – the main draw being that the Active remembers nothing of the ordeal afterwards.  At any rate check this one out, it’s neato.

Naturally, Alvin was in front of his computer awaiting that familiar new email sound. He could practically see the email before it even arrived, and opened it as quickly as he could. He couldn’t believe it. He was in the beta for Starcraft 2. The client weighed in at a hefty 12.5GB but he wanted that game badly. He immediately twittered his elation, facebooked his excitement and blogged his amazement. His friends from across the globe began checking their own emails, finding the same email sitting there, waiting…

In an unprecedented move, Blizzard had invited everyone they had on record.

Meanwhile, Alvin had eagerly sat through the download which had seemed to take an agonisingly long time. The progress bar ticked slowly to 97%… 98%… 99%… the sweat gathered on Alvin’s brow as he steadied his hand over the “Open” button, ready to start the install. Ready to become the world’s first player of Starcraft 2 Beta.

100%! Alvin clicked with all the speed his SC1 trained reflexes allowed. Another progress bar and then… a glorious ToS. Never had Alvin been so happy to see a ToS screen. He quickly clicked his way through the installer, stopping at nothing, accepting all the defaults – his carefully organised hard drive be damned! Finally, the installer had done its task. The Starcraft 2 Beta was installed and ready to fire up. Alvin held his breath and in tandem with millions of people across the globe he double clicked the icon. The hard disk whirred into action, millions of HDD LEDs flickered in harmony as everyone’s monitor went black – the dark before the dawn as the introductory cinematic loaded. In that moment on millions of computers around the world, a beautifully crisp high definition video began to play and Rick Astley began to sing Never Gonna Give You Up.

It was Monday, September 21st, 2009 – the day Blizzard rickrolled the entire world.

SC2 will never be released

5. Gabriel Gray (Sylar)

Gabriel Gray (Sylar)

Who is he?

Sylar is the bad guy from the TV show Heroes.  If you haven’t seen the show, you should watch it purely for this character, particularly the first season.  He is one bad ass dude.  He gets bonus points for having the brains to change his gay name from Gabriel Gray to Sylar, and for removing his gigantic coke bottle glasses and frumpy Donald Trump hair to become a sinister looking bad guy.

Why is he so bad ass?

Sylar has the ability to steal powers from other people which is pretty awesome because it means he ends up with a kick ass combination of really powerful shit that he can do.  It gets even more bad ass than that though because to steal the powers, Sylar has to cut off the top of the person’s skull and tinker with their brain, usually leaving them dead.  Sylar has a constant conflict between being good and being evil so aside from all that other cool stuff he’s just a generally great character to watch.

Oh, and Sylar killed his own mother and that makes him pretty ruthless in my books, so put another tick next to bad ass for that one.

4. Arvin Sloane

Arvin Sloane

Who is he?

Arvin Sloane is the bad guy from Alias, that show with Jennifer Garner in it which ended up really shit after the second season.  Sloane is the director of SD-6, the shady underground organisation that the CIA is fighting against in Season 1 of the show.

Why is he so bad ass?

He was tortured by Quentin Tarantino and didn’t reveal a thing.  That’s right, Quentin Tarantino made him look at his squinty mongoloid head for a full minute and Sloane revealed nothing.  I’m kidding of course, although it was indeed Quentin Tarantino playing the ruthless McKenas Cole who managed to break into SD-6 and torture Sloane for information using what he calls “fire needles” which apparently burn incredibly hot when stabbed into someone’s skin.  It’s hard to appreciate how bad ass it is unless you’ve seen the particular scene, so you may just have to take my word for it.

3. Dr. Gregory House

Dr. Gregory House

Who is he?

Dr. Gregory House is the protagonist from the TV show House M.D.  Being a medical doctor and all, you probably wouldn’t expect to see him on this list, but read on to find out why he makes it.

Why is he so bad ass?

Dr. House has done some seriously fucked up, bad ass shit in the show’s five seasons, all in the name of saving lives.  As with Jack Bauer and Peter Petrelli, House has also died several times throughout the TV show.  When his friend Dr. Wilson’s girlfriend (Amber) was involved in a bus crash, House was there but too drunk to remember anything.  So when Amber becomes deathly ill it’s up to House to remember what symptoms she was displaying before the crash.  Here’s the bad ass bit: House allows his colleagues to dig into his brain with electrodes risking permanent irreversible brain damage in order to stimulate his memory and bring to light the details he had forgotten.  Now that takes some serious balls.

2. Jack Bauer

Jack Bauer

Who is he?

Jack Bauer is some dude from a fictional government organisation called CTU, from that awesome show 24.  Played by Keifer Sutherland (having a movie star play the character adds bad-assedness)  Jack goes through a bunch of complete and utter shit every season of 24 and still comes back to kick ass next time round.

Why is he so bad ass?

Jack Bauer has literally died several times in the show, one time in particular he was tortured to death and then brought back for a little more torture when the bad guys realised that dead people aren’t very useful when it comes to answering questions.

He was arrested by the Chinese and held in a Chinese prison for almost 2 years.  Luckily, the US government arranged to have him released from the prison, thank god right?  Wrong, they did this because a bunch of terrorists wanted Jack’s head, and the government couldn’t deliver that with Jack in the pen.  That’s right, after two years in a Chinese prison the US government finally gets around to freeing him so they can give him to terrorists who want him dead.  Of course, Jack takes this all in stride like a big fucking manly man and just kinda shrugs a bit before saying “Sure guys, whatever”.

1. Peter Petrelli

Peter Petrelli

Who is he?

Peter is that guy from Heroes that you probably remember for his super emo hair.  Lucky for Peter’s likability, he lost the emo hair in Season 2 while simultaneously becoming completely bad ass.

Why is he so bad ass?

Okay so he started off with that whole emo fringe thing and was kind of a moody bitch, but Peter has really come into his own.  In the second season he realised he could shoot lightning out of his hands and shit, which is pretty fucking bitchin.  He also suffered from amnesia, meaning goody-two-shoes Peter was left behind and a more kick ass version was here to stay.

6. The Intermissionist

I don’t think that’s even a word, so I’m staking my claim on it right now as my very own word for people who insist on getting up and down during a movie and then expecting you to explain everything they missed.  This is very annoying in any movie that you’re particularly enjoying because not only are you having the constant distraction of them shuffling about, you’ve got the added frustration of having to pause the movie and explain the stuff they missed, completely taking you out of said movie.

Similar to this is someone who will come in halfway through a movie and expect you to catch them up on the first half.  With a simple Adam Sandler comedy this probably wouldn’t be an issue at all, but for anything more involved it’s annoying as hell.  Imagine trying to explain the first half of Body of Lies to someone while simultaneously watching the second half.  Doesn’t sound fun?  That’s because it’s not.

5. The Fortune Teller

OMG I TOTALLY CALLED THAT TWIST

This is something I really can’t stand.  There’s usually that one guy who feels like he has to one-up everyone else by calling out a twist before it happens in case he predicted it correctly.  While predicting a twist can sometimes be a “wow, nice one” moment, it’s usually a “you dick, I didn’t see that coming and you ruined it for me” moment.  It can even be as subtle as someone saying “Oh I bet that guy will get shot any minute now OH MY GOD HE JUST GOT SHOT!”  It’s not like it’s some major plot twist, but holy shit does it ruin a movie having someone do that.  Even worse is that usually the prediction they’re making isn’t even a difficult or insightful one.  Most of the time everyone will already know what’s coming but they’re too busy… oh, say… enjoying the movie?

4. The Questioner

Kevin Spacey, The Usual Suspects

Why is she opening that closet?  Is that guy dead?  Who killed that lady?  Where did his wife go?  Am I annoying yet?

This is possibly the worst type of movie viewer on the list.  This is the person who you will go to see a movie with, neither of you having seen it before, and they will ask you question after question after question.  I don’t wanna get all sexist up in here but for some reason this is something almost all girls do.

It’s simple: I haven’t seen the movie before, I only know as much as you do.  Why the hell would I know who killed that guy if you don’t?  Part of the frustration of this is the implied necessity for everything to be blatantly obvious in a movie.  How can they just have that guy be dead and not say who did it?  That’s because it’s a mystery!  It’s the whole point of the movie!  Seriously people, come on…

3. The Thrill Seeker

Underworld is a shitty, shitty movie.

Sometimes you’ll go see a movie that is absolute fucking shit.  I’m talking about absolutely terrible, retarded movies like Underworld (I’m gonna get into trouble for that one).  It seems as though if the movie makes no genuine attempt to be good, you should automatically be able to suspend your critical mind and enjoy it anyway.  I enjoyed plenty of movies that quite obviously necessitated a suspension of belief, that’s not the issue here.  If I don’t like a movie it’s because I have watched it, thought about it and come to the conclusion that it’s a terrible movie.  I’m sorry if that undermines your precious fucking pearl of a movie (I’m looking at YOU Transformer fans) but I literally just despise the movie.

They will often tell you that “you’re no fun” or “you only like boring movies”.  Even more common is “I just like to have the occasional movie that I don’t have to think about”.  There’s a big difference between not-thinking-about-it and blindly adoring it for indiscernible reasons.  Often this is just a case of the fan trying to make themselves feel better by pretending that you only dislike their favourite movie because of something you’re doing wrong.  Conveniently, this leads me onto the next point…

2. The “You Just Don’t Get It” Guy

Have you ever watched one of those arty movies and not really liked it much?  That’s okay – if you didn’t like it, you can’t help it, it just wasn’t to your taste.  Or maybe… You just don’t get it!  That’s what some people will have you believe anyway.

These people are annoying as hell and tend to place themselves on some level above everyone else when it comes to movies.  Sure, there are some times when “not getting” a movie can truly ruin it but usually if someone didn’t like a movie, they just didn’t like it.  They’re not missing out on some highly intellectual subtlety that only your finely tuned cinema eye can detect.

On the other hand, I did know someone who once said they hated Fight Club because it just seemed to be all about fighting and was therefore a guy’s movie.  While I concede that guy’s are probably much more likely to enjoy the movie as it does drive home a lot of the insecurity and frustration males face, it’s not fair to say the movie is “just about fighting”.  It’s not about fighting at all.  This is the rare case where someone truly has misunderstood the movie.

That being said, I’ve been told I don’t like Twilight because I “don’t get the movie”.  No, I don’t like it because it’s an atrocious piece of film-making.

1. The Fact Checker

This is the guy who will impulsively point out any factual inaccuracy as soon as it occurs.  The title of worst offender is currently a tie between science buffs and gun nuts.  Imagine watching a movie like Bad Boys, which is obviously supposed to be fairly over the top and generally exciting rather than thought provoking.  That won’t stop the gun nut fact checker from pointing out that gun that shot more times than it should have, or that gun sound that isn’t the right sound.

It goes without saying you shouldn’t even bother watching a science fiction movie with a science buff present, unless you’re happy to hear them harp on about how they did the time travel all wrong or how computers don’t really work in the way the movie presents them.

Team Fortress 2: my favourite class, the Pyro

I’ve been helping my mate Ash out with some web stuff lately and in return he bought me The Orange Box.  For those who don’t already know, The Orange Box is a set of six games from Valve.

• Half Life 2
• Half Life 2: Episode 1
• Half Life 2: Episode 2
• Half Life 2: Lost Coast
• Portal
• Team Fortress 2

The one that demanded my attention was Team Fortress 2.  I saw Ash playing it a while ago and loved the whole look of it.  Having recently upgraded my computer, it was one of the first games on my list of games-to-buy.

Having played for a short time now (a total of 3.7 hours) I can honestly say I dig the shit out of this game (and not in a gay way).  It’s very fast-paced, there are a LOT of small goals to shoot for in the form of achievements (so you always feel like you’re getting somewhere, even if you’re losing each game) and there is a great selection of play styles to choose from in the form of classes.

You can get up close and personal with the Pyro, blazing a fiery trail through the other team while bouncing their rockets and grenades right back at them.  Your flame thrower comes equipped with the ability to emit a compression blast, capable of flinging other players around and putting out team mates who have been set alight.  Or you can just use your flame thrower to shoot bursts of flames at your team mates, in the hope they might catch alight, thus being revealed as an enemy spy.

You can infiltrate the other team as a spy, disguised to look exactly like a teammate to them, allowing you to destroy buildings and backstab key players. The spy is also capable of moving around the map entirely undetected, unless you accidentally bump into someone (you can run through teammates, but you bump into players of the opposing team.  This is a key factor in spotting spies).

You can work as an engineer to fortify your teams position, providing the crucial support your team needs to gain a foothold in a tricky game.  Engineers have the ability to strengthen the current position and the front line with a combination of automated turrets and teleporters that enable players to reach the front line in no time.

You can protect your fellow team mates as a medic, healing them in a tight spot and even deciding the game occasionally with a carefully timed invulnerability.  Even better, why not team up with another medic to become a nigh unstoppable chain healing duo?

You can play as the soldier, blasting foes away with a well aimed rocket blast.  Gaining access to tricky areas is no problem for the rocket jumping soldier.  If you come across an enemy Pyro who enjoys spitting rockets back at you, feel free to break out the ol’ Shotgun and outgun him from outside his flamethrower’s range.

Additional classes include the Heavy, the Sniper, the Demoman and the Scout.  All of the classes offer a very unique style of play and should afford a huge level of replayability.  I have so far played primarily as the Pyro (which I’m told is the best class for beginners) with a brief stint as a Spy and a Demoman.  The game is one that seems deceptively simple on the outside, which means new players can jump straight in and enjoy themselves immediately.  At the same time however, there is a lot of depth to the game just waiting to be explored by the more enthusiastic players.  As an example, one of the achievements I earned last night is called “Pilot Light”.  How do you get it?  You need to wait for an enemy soldier to rocket jump, and then set them on fire while they’re in the air.  It’s that kind of crazy shit that will keep this game fresh and fun for me for a long time.

If you’re looking for some examples of how fun this game can be, check out Ash’s regular feature “TF2-uesday“.

Weird KIDS

Submitted by Sims3rockzmysocks9

Description: No description provided.

GHOST CONCEPTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!GHOST BABY!!!!!!!!!!

Submitted by champsofky01

Description: LIFE AFTER DEATH EXISTS.. !!!!!!!

A TRUE love GHOST Story

Submitted by champsofky01

Description: Who says love dies when life ends? This story proves that is wrong, It’s long, But watch it to the end, for a surprise.

TALKING ON 5 PHONES ALOT!!!!!

Submitted by kevinislove

Description:
PEOPLE HAVING A CONVO AND IT IS REALLY AWKWARD!!!HAHA

pregnant causes problems

Submitted by bubblegirl226

Description: No description provided.

A Hobo in Sims 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) Hobos Rule!!1

Submitted by Sims3rockzmysocks9

Description: A video of a Hobo!

Terminator Salvation

Before we start, I’m not some obsessed Terminator fan.  I’ve seen them all and I enjoyed them all, but I’m not some rabid fanboy so bare that in mind while reading this review.  If you don’t like the movie because they destroyed your childhood memories of Terminator or some shit, then don’t bother reading this review.

Now, with that out of the way, I really did love the new Terminator.  It was a bit of a surprise as I really wasn’t sure how well it would turn out after the lackluster affair that was Terminator 3.  I was pretty keen for it since I knew Christian Bale would pull a great performance and I had high hopes for Sam Worthington.

I don’t want to carry on too much about the plot as there are a few (fairly predicatable) twists throughout.  On a general note though, the action was really quite intense.  Keep your eye out for one particular scene in the beginning with one long tracking shot of John Connor running to a helicopter, jumping in and taking off.  The camera actually follows the helicopter up into the air.  It’s a very well done shot and you’ll see why when you watch the movie.

Everything about the way the movie is made is very impressive, right down to the colour shifting used to bring more silver into every frame.  It works a treat and gives the whole film a very industrial, futuristic feel.

In short, you should probably go see this movie, even if you didn’t like the other three much.  It’s done in a very different style, and is probably closest in overall atmosphere to the original Terminator.  That being said it’s still quite a unique take, with very serious overtones and only a spattering of humour offered throughout.

Please, please don't be a terrible and shitty game

As I mentioned in one of my other updates, I’ve been reading a LOT about Diablo III lately, and figured I would post an entry detailing why exactly I’m so excited about it.

Diablo & Diablo II

Both Diablo and Diablo II were amazing games with a lot of replay value, meaning I played the absolute shit out of them.  That being said there were a lot of annoyances that will hopefully be removed in Diablo III.  Of the few I can remember, these ones stick out the most:

• No ability to “link” items to others in multiplayer, meaning you have to manually type out the stats, or drop it for the player to check out themselves.  Neither is really very convenient.
• ‘Tetris-style’ inventory resulting in constant juggling of inconsistently sized items to free up more space.
• Skills & stats are set in stone and all changes are permanent making it very easy to completely ruin a character.
• Resolution permanently set to a maximum of 800×600 (or 640×480 in the case of Diablo).
• No real incentive to apply stat points and/or skill points as you get them.  The player can effectively hoard their points and them place them all into some really high skill.
• No real indication of whether an item is worth keeping to sell or not.  Picking up a magic item, then identifying it and selling it can often leave you at a loss, if you had to purchase a Scroll of Identify.  Gay.

As you can see I whine a lot, but I really do love both the games.  The good news is ALL except one of the above points have been confirmed as solved in the newest Diablo.

Skill Points and Stat Points

Current word on this is that the game will allow you to reset your skill points and stat points will no longer be configurable.  The exact mechanic for resetting skill points has not been decided upon.

Regarding the stat points, a lot of people were very upset by the decision to up stats by set amounts every level instead of allowing the player to distribute them as was the case in the other two Diablo games.  Personally I haven’t made up my mind whether I like the decision or not, but I definitely don’t share the same level of concern as the fans who are raging about it.

Inventory Changes

One of the biggest frustrations in Diablo and Diablo II is the juggling of variously shaped items in order to cram that latest drop into your inventory.  The creators said they didn’t want to remove the differently sized icons as they felt it provided depth (it did).  What they’ve done is separated the bag space into three sections – big items, small items, and quest items.  This allows things like scrolls, potions etc to take up less space than a shield or y’know, a great big fucking poleaxe, while still removing the need to constantly shuffle items around at the breakneck battle.net pace.

Resolution

I don’t know if this has been confirmed now that I think about it, but it can safely be said that the resolution will be able to scale right down for lower end systems, or scale right up to a beautiful maximum for the top end systems.  If I looked around I’m sure that’s confirmed somewhere, but I’m so positive it will be possible I haven’t even bothered to check.

Item Value

While there have been plenty of screenshots showing item tooltips with sell value included, I haven’t found any conclusive evidence that this is intended to remain in the final version.  The fact it’s in there now is a good sign however, and if it stays will provide a LOT of help when deciding whether you should sacrifice that spear to pick up that axe.

Item Linking?

No word on this as yet, as far as I can tell.  Battle.net is getting a complete revamp into what will become Battle.net 2.0, so I would hope that the feature will be supported and included after the reworking.  So again, no official word to my knowledge, but it’s highly likely you’ll be able to link items to people so they can see the stats without having to own the item.

Conclusion

It seems highly likely that all the major issues with the past two games have been seized upon and removed, but only time will really tell whether the new solutions are any better than the old problems.  The game looks incredibly good from what has been seen so far and if the web site is anything to go by, the lore involved will be deep and thorough (though apparently skippable if that’s not your thing).

All I can say is at least Starcraft II is due this year, so I have something to hold me over while I await Diablo III.

The first of these is “The Bugaler”. Continue reading to see the movie and a brief synopsis…

the bugaler

This amazing contribution from alis102938 is the story of a family who is ‘burgled’ one night and are capable of communicating only by phone.

The story starts in the house of some people I don’t care about, where a burglar is doing burglar things like sneaking around and such.  A girl then phones some guy (presumably brother and sister) to let him know “it’s happed again”.  He initially responds with disbelief:

But she proceeds to set him straight:

The brother, convinced the house has in fact been robbed, decided to phone his mother who is understandably upset:

The house now being a dangerous place to stay, the mother phones a friend to organise temporary accommodation.  The brother is impressed with the relocation:

And the mother is finally able to relax…

And all is well until the mother reveals to the friend that they intend to stay for several months!  This doesn’t go down well…

The mother heads home to pack up her children and her belongings, but what’s this?? Their NEW place is being robbed!

The mother won’t stand for this, and a fight between two as yet unmentioned characters occurs.  (I think we’re supposed to think it’s the mum vs. the burglar or something?)  At any rate, it seems the mother scares away the burglar and the friend is so pleased she lets the family stay with her.