Thursday, 21 June 2007

Roll On Monday...

Because the new "Beastie Boys" album is released and personally I cannot wait. Titled "Mix Up" this is the groups seventh studio album and first completely instrumental album. Joined by Money Mark and no sign of Mix Master Mike this could be amazing and will hopefully be a return to form of "Check Your Head/Paul's Boutique" proportions. No words, no samples and no scratching just twelve tracks of pure quality. Already with two brilliant singles released here for your pleasure is the video to the brilliant "Rat Cage".

Not Bad Meaning Bad But Bad Meaning Good

"Superbad" is the new movie from Director Greg Mottola who is a newcomer when it comes to movies but he did direct three fantastic episodes of the fantastic TV show "Arrested Development". The movie stars Michael Cera (Again of "Arrested Development" fame) and Jonah Hill. This looks like it could be pretty funny with some very silly humour and Cera playing more or less the same character he does in "Arrested Development" even if it is a little more rude! It could go under the radar so here for your viewing pleasure is the "Red Band" trailer meaning that there is some swearing. Enjoy!

Wednesday, 20 June 2007

Urban Dead

Following the rave reviews this game has received from my good friends Rich and Stu I have joined Rich in defending the city of Malton in the fantastic Urban Dead. A very basic but fun online game that to be fair is just a huge map of a city that you explore while trying to survive a zombie outbreak. Limited to 50 moves per day it limits it but keeps it fun and very addictive at the same time.

Move through the street into buildings to search for items and camp out or go out on a rampage and try and find and kill as many zombies as possible with your available action points to build up your experience points. Use these points to build up the attributes of your character to make him harder than a stale loaf of bread.

In the last two days I have attacked a zombie, ran away from a zombie, camped out in the fire station, killed a zombie and now after searching a local police station and finding two pistol clips, a shotgun shell, another radio and a flak jacket I have no action points left so I'm left camping out at the cop shop.

I'll keep you up to date on my movements in the city of Malton and exactly what is going on with my character Alfonso Durant.

Go on give Urban Dead a go you know you want to!

Sunday, 17 June 2007

Toy Tailoring

Isn't it amazing exactly how far we have come when it comes to toys? Take something as simple as giving an action figure real material clothing and look at what we used to get (and what still seems to be the norm now)

Badly fitting, saggy and disproportionate clothing and body parts. Spidey looks like he lost a good few stone since he started rockin' these new black digs! To be fair these two toys are aimed at completely different markets but just look at this

This is the new RAH Bruce Lee from Medicom and it is simply fantastic. High quality materials that fit the figure perfectly. Now this could just be me being anal retentive but in stuff like this its the details that make something nice to look at or can have the opposite effect and can make it look like a turd.

Like I said the two figures are aimed at different people but what difference to the manufacturer would it make to have the Spidey's clothes fit better? It wouldn't cost anymore in fact it may even end up being cheaper as they would be using less material. Sales may even go up because the real cloth version would look just as good as a painted figure. Maybe its for nostalgic purposes as all figures used to look as cack as this back in the olden days?

I can't wait to get my mitts on one of these Bruce Lee figures!

Monday, 11 June 2007

Oh Ebay How I loathe Thee...

This is due to the fact that I lose countless minutes/hours/days sitting here watching and waiting for auctions to end. The most recent one?










A full run of volume 2 of Daredevil from the Smith "Guardian Devil" arc to the most recent issue. 97 issues of mostly great comics. This is among other Daredevil issues including the first appearance of Elektra. Outbid by a pound by some scum who probably thinks he can make a bit of profit. Oh well it is my own fault I suppose down to the fact that I never put in my highest bid as soon as I should.

Thanks to Pappy though I now own all of the variant covers to the first ten issues of the New Avengers. This then lead to an interesting conversation at work. More on that next time though!

Sunday, 10 June 2007

Job Done!

So on Thursday myself and my classmates recorded our live studio programme. All of the worries of the last few weeks disappeared and I have to be honest it went really well. People laughed when they were supposed to and everybody had a lot of fun. Our lecturer more or less told us that our programme would get us a pass which was very relieving.

On Friday the entire class had to come in so we could view everyone's programmes together and write our evaluations. There were four programmes to be viewed and ours came first. I was really pleased with how the programme turned out and most people laughed at the segments that I had directed and shot with my friends so I was pretty chuffed at that! A lot of people went for a comedy orientated piece but to be fair our programme seemed to get the best reaction.

After the lesson everyone congregated outside of our building as people said their goodbyes. It didn't feel real to be honest as everyone kind of dispersed fairly quickly. A lot of us also went out on Saturday night for a friends birthday. Everyone had a really good time (some more than others!) and then we said our proper goodbyes at about 4 in the morning. This felt real as it got pretty emotional at times and took over half an hour before everyone went their separate ways.

I've had a great first year but to be honest I'm glad its over as I really need a break from it all. I'm going to spend my summer working at the shop, savings lots of money, buying stuff and hopefully going on holiday. I've made loads of new friends at Coventry and have passed the year fairly comfortably (I think!) and I'll definitely be going back next year.

Monday, 4 June 2007

One Down

And one deadline to go. Both are for the exact same module but the Friday just gone was the hand in date for the written work aspect of the module meaning I had to hand in my workbook. For those that don't know a workbook is a book that we have to keep that we put in all of our ideas and work as we go along through the module. This includes notes on lessons, sketches and the work that I put into the module. I always leave these till more or less the last minute which is just a stupid idea meaning I have to type up and create around forty pages of work usually in about three or four days. Forty is more or less my average page count but this one I bumped up to around fifty three pages. Obviosuly its the quality not the quantity but I think thats usually bullshit because the more bases you cover the more chance you have of a higher mark.

This weeks deadline is the actual creating of our piece of work. Working as a whole class has pretty much been a lot of fun at times but has took the piss at others. I get the feeling we could fail but I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

Until next time...