Roderick

I would so incredibly like to play this with you, but I still have no online connection with my 360. WIll I be tempted to get one just for this game? Hmmm! I'd love to ride the plains with ya though.

Thanks Groucho Kolzig, here in the Netherlands, practicing kendo (apart from the prohibitively expensive armour) is dirt cheap. I pay 20 Euros a month, it's a non-profit organisation of enthusiasts. When I was in LA I was shocked at the price of classes there. It's an insane difference between what my own org and a professional training hall. So, try to find a local club or something, if you find yourself paying through the nose for 'professional' instruction. (I put professional that way because the Dutch 'enthusiasts' way is by no means less professional only because it doesn't ask for a salary. We have 3rd to 7th Dan instructors who participate and win in international championships of kendo.)

That's pretty rad, and disturbing. I couldn't watch the Christopher Walken video, because there was an enormous douchebag in the start of the video who out of the blue started saying things like 'Christopher Fucking Walken', and then my mouse went click on the little X.

Today I splurged 500 Euros on this: My kendo armour! I have permission to wear it in a couple of weeks, so it was high time. I'm very excited to start wearing it and finally able to participate in a real bout of kendo. I expect to be bruised and beaten up shortly!

I guess here in Europe we're all living in the decaying ruins of dead civilizations!

I did not yet compliment Snooglebum profusely for Jake Hates The BigDog. Hear, hear!

(Note that there are spoilers in here for Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory) Tim Burton’s recent Alice in Wonderland is in many ways a weird and wonderful movie, with one quite peculiar aspect. The Mad Hatter, the classic character from the wild tea party, got an origin story. In a flashback we learned that the Hatter used to work in the court. A devastating attack on the queen left his mind broken and ever since he was the zany psychiatric patient we all really like. Why does this feel so familiar? In Burton’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, another classic book adaptation, the director pulls the same trick. Willy Wonka, the eccentric factory owner who doesn’t care about conventions and carves his own path in life, got an origin story too. His father was revealed to be a cruel dentist who hated candy. Restrained by a huge set of braces, Wonka’s sanity snapped and he fled into a delusional candy world of his own creation. Does no one else get a bitter taste in the mouth by all of this? The moral of the story is clear. These classic, superbly insane, not-a-care-in-the-world, colourful characters are reduced by Burton to victims. Their whole state of being caused by trauma. What a horrible message! By emphasizing these characters (who in the original works simply were what they were, on the same level as every other figure) as traumatized, tragic, disturbed, Burton tells us that this kind of eccentricity is abnormal. This is not the way people are supposed to be! It’s a depressing subliminal message from a director who himself flaunts with his own weirdness. But Burton unmasks himself as a disheartening pessimist: someone who can only see that which deviates from the norm as the result of trauma. A disappointing realisation. Burton is a self-hating eccentric, who doesn’t believe that people can deviate without something being wrong with them. I want to make it clear that I have nothing against tragic heroes. Edward Scissorhands was clearly a tortured creature and Jack Skellington wallowed in his own sadness, but these were new creations linked to the movie’s theme! It is exactly by perceiving and seeking tragedy behind characters that from themselves were never tragic, like Willy Wonka and Mad Hatter, that Burton shows his true colours. He broadcasts a horrible message: if you’re different from other people it’s not your personality -- you’re mentally broken.

Burn Notice is fun, but nothing more than that. It's got a nice premise. I always watch it 'in between' my real favorite shows. Campbell is a delight to see, as always. Easily the best thing from the show!

I can see that, but it is what I infer from the message, since the reason for these characters being crrrazy is hinged solely on their trauma. But, of course, feel free to disagree!

That doesn't seem like the sort of thing a space asshole would concern himself with.

Coincidentally, I also saw the original Producers last night. It had been on my list for a while because a few months back I became infatuated with the remade version of Springtime for Hitler. What a surprising funny. It really grew on me. At first I was lukewarm toward it, but especially afterward I really appreciated Wilder's amazing, hysterical performance. I also like how extremely simple the characters and the plot are, yet it works great. I'm curious what the remake feels like. I did feel that some of the more obvious jokes in the old one felt a little stale and drawn out (you can easily imagine more effective, modern ways to play out the 'secretary dancing in a skimpy dress'). Great stuff nonetheless.

Masturbation has now been invoked in this thread.

Just 'SPACE ASSHOLE' would more than suffice

Wache was a relic from a more pretentious/wacky Thumbs, which poked fun at the ubiquitous use of Che Guevara as a popcultural icon. There's not much interpretation beyond that, it's just a funny picture that came to be the official Thumbs icon for the first few years, I guess? On that note, I reiterate that there MUST BE more Idle Thumbs hoodies. Wache I would buy, as I would other cool designs. Maybe it's time for a new one with a wizard?

If someone were to implement, say, a Wache on a black hoodie, it would be insta-buy time! Please, make it so! The podcast was amazing, 10/10. I just have so much fun with these things, non-sexually.

I keep hearing that it's better than Diamond/Pearl. I never finished Diamond. Should I bother with Soulsilver, even though souls don't exist?

That was pretty sweet. I think they'll capture the tone of the comic pretty well! And I'm very happy to see that they're condensing the story, so that it won't be 'one movie per pocket', but a tighter experience. I was wondering how they'd solve that.

I saw Alice in Wonderland. I expected horrible things, so, not taking into account any preconceptions that it 'should' be this or that, I found it quite enjoyable on the basis of itself. Apart from the worst ending in recent film history. Crazy bad. The Mad Hatter was pretty fun, though also just weird, with his Scottish accent. Yeah.

In truth, colonization of the moon will be so impossibly expensive and difficult, that no single man or small group will be able to pull it off by himself without the support of some major financing and tech help. The moon is destined to be colonized either by governments or companies. Not a bad thing persé, but it's never going to be a 'wild west' Myself, I'm heading for Titan, to mine liquid methane and sell it to stupid Earthlings for money.

So now it turns out, Ian Livingstone is not only the friendliest person in the world, he also has regular gaming nights with his buddy Steve Jackson and Peter Molyneux, where they play anything from Settlers to Ticket to Ride. That is amazing.

He'll be pretty miffed when Daniel Plainview buys up all the land surrounding him and takes away his oil through drainage.

I may or may not be flying to London today to have a meeting with Ian Livingstone tomorrow. Awesome things may or may not happen. The month is May March.

Yeah, I never do that. That just thoroughly disgusts me. Who knows how long that food has been lying there next to some heater? When you order your food at Febo's it's good stuff though.

Conf grenade get! Kinda late, but there you have it. I usually, weirdly, nowadays listen to podcasts while I'm deconstructing my Lego?