Roderick

Sounds good and I'm always interesting in assassination stuff - especially if the whole thing would be much more strategically worked out than AC's thusfar woeful attempts. Having said that, the CGI trailer above I thought was pretty run-of-the-mill, IGN catchphrases and all.

Ooh, that's a gotcha.

No, sorry, I don't know those books. I read they're classics with a tie to Hitchcock, but they never made it to the Netherlands. In any case, my story will probably never get made and is most likely really pulpy and shallow But, you know, I try.

David Mitchell released a book after Cloud Atlas called The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. It's about the Dutch Dejima colony in Japan and so I have to read it. Hopefully it's good! I haven't read anything from him, but I decidedly will.

Over the last year, we've heard some disturbing news about Foxconn, the major supplier/manufacturer of most of the gaming machines that we play on (PC purists here possibly excluded). It's all put down rather succinctly in this Kotaku post: http://kotaku.com/5879476/do-apple-microsoft-sony-and-nintendo-really-care-do-we?tag=china (one of their more journalistically sound efforts). If you have a Thing against Kotaku, here's a good bit in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html. It's rather disturbing to see our ravenous hunger for technology being fed by what essentially boils down to slave labor. Those people work under heinous circumstances. It makes me a little sick to look at my (second hand) iPhone, to be honest. I'm playing silly little games on machines that drove an entire assembly line to climb on a roof ready to jump off in desperation. What can consumers do to improve this situation? Boycot hardware produced in this fashion? Write letters?

So, I've been mulling over a story in my head and was wondering about perspective and protagonists in books. Juxtaposing the narratives of a classic, single-protagonist story (Harry Potter) with an ensemble cast story (Game of Thrones) and figuring out what are the benefits of both. The story I have in my head is slightly dependent on mystery, so having too broad an ensemble cast would undermine the sense of suspense (though Agatha Christie did some interesting things with this format). However, most single-protagonist characters I know tend to be on the uninteresting side because out of necessity they require broad appeal. So I came upon the idea of following a limited group (say, three) people in the cast to circumvent these problems. Note: this story may never actually be developed any further, depending on a thousand factors. More note: I don't know what anyone is supposed to do with this post.

#whatadick

It's when Andy Serkis acts like an ape and people encourage him.

What you forget, is that Mo' money = Mo' cap

I never thought this day would come, but Warcraft movies/cutscenes have become completely intolerable and objectionable to me. I couldn't even finish watching one of the patch movies for Cataclysm just now. It at the same time takes itself way too seriously with sighing orcs spouting horrible clichés and cringeworthy writing, but also starts taking its jokes too seriously. This is Mists of Pandaria, an entire new World of Warcraft expansion that saw its origins in an April Fools joke from about a decade ago. If only it had remained a joke. But no, this is Warcraft and everything in it must be coolified and made Big. This is Warcraft, jumping the shark. Warcraft used to be so cool. It was a kooky, sweaty universe. Warcraft II was great. Warcraft III as well. But ever since World of Warcraft there has been such an enormous increase in lore, and with that in bullshit, that you just couldn't know everything about it anymore and that sapped the fun away for me. Look, I'll play Mists of Pandaria, of course I will. It'll be exciting and beautiful and fun. But Warcraft as a universe has lost its appeal completely. I can still enjoy it as a casual spectator, but I've long since stopped being a fan. And, yeah, those terrible cutscenes... It's a shame. I just can't enjoy it at this point anymore. At least there's still Starcraft and Diablo, worlds that are for the moment still plausible, believable, enjoyable, understandable. Not milked to death to such a degree that even the fucking April Fools joke gets its own expansion.

As evidenced by the man alone on a chair, singing at the wall with a pained expression.

That's some craaaaap kendo in that video, Orvidos. That's not even remotely what it's actually like. What's the point of using kendo fighting in a video if you're not going to show actual kendo fighting, but instead a pair of morons swinging around their swords like the Star Wars kid?

I think Deathwing is a pretty cool guy. Eh cataclysms and doesnt afraid of anything.

Like every tv prop, that thing was lovingly, painstakingly handcrafted by a mischievous clown.

World of Warranty

This is real: 4OnDizZ7UT0

Even though I feel nothing but general meh-ness towards Star Wars Kinect, and not vitriolic rage (why bother? What shred of hope could anyone have had at this point for the sanctity of the Star Wars brand?), I still wouldn't want to own it. However. This happened: That is the best-looking Xbox I've ever seen and I so happen to need a new one. But I don't want Kinect, nor any Kinect game, nor the high price tag on this set. But daaaaaamn

Haha, I was talking about Community, I don't know anything about a marathon.

You're right, Scrobbs, I was thinking about season 2 which had a great finale. Haven't seen any of season 3 as I tend to wait until I can see the whole thing.

Don't stop watching, if only for the season finale.

Thank you for posting this. I loved every single word in it.

Leon isn't a prettyboy anymore ((

I finally saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy last week. I didn't mention it then, because I was kind of confused by it and wanted to mull it over a little, trying to understand what it exactly was. I haven't been able to discern it. Does it make more 'sense' if you've read the book? It's not exactly the plot that confuses me, just to clarify, rather I didn't fully comprehend what this film was about. What was it trying to say? It had all these themes and wonderful stories and I was very interested throughout, but I was constantly waiting for it to make a point. I'd be very grateful if someone were to offer me a point of entry for this, I feel I'm missing some vital piece of information to understanding.

The most important thing is the soiler tag Hello 3MA!