Nachimir

Seconded; Matt Smith is an excellent Doctor, and they've done some slightly darker things with it than they've done before. Also, in the words of my workmate, Amy Pond is an angel sent from heaven. It can still be very cheesy, and I dislike that the sonic screwdriver is just a magic macguffin that seems to psychically extend his will, but it's still fun. Several people I know who've always hated Doctor Who like this season.

Pssh Anything dangerous was, of course, voluntary and stressed as such. Refreshingly without peer pressure too.

^ This. I never listen to music from Megaman 2, but the soundtrack brings back some amazing feelings.

I really, really want a few of them. They look like immense fun to play with.

Basically, the people running the self defence class I train at are friends with some local farm owners and use their land for archery, learning horse riding basics, etc. They decided to organise a summer camp for any regulars at the class, and it was incredible. From Friday night until this afternoon was almost constant exercises and games in woods and derelict buildings; they did a stellar job of organising it and keeping things moving. We learned to make fires to cook our food, and keep them burning all day while doing other things elsewhere too. We slept under the stars on the second night. We explored a disused railway tunnel. I found out I'm not a bad shot with crossbows and air rifles, which I hadn't used before. We practised martial arts inside cars. I dodged knives that were being thrown at my head. Really, not aimed high or to the side, they stuck in the board right behind where my head had been. Once you're looking at someone's body for intent, it's not that hard to get out of the way, but it still makes you nervous! This is a summary of the sneaky game I typed up for another forum. The hooded camo gear we wore for it also really added to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. vibe. I mentioned that to the main organiser, and yes, he knows the game The wild horses and roosting birds also gave us some great tip offs as to where and when thieves were on the move It was a phenomenal weekend. I ache all over and am bleeding in several places (not throwing knife related).

I just spent the weekend on a farm camping, fitness training, target shooting, doing martial arts and playing sneaky games at night in an adjoining disused farm. It was excellent, also there were wild horses around In one game, we had to sneak through patrols into a derelict house+courtyard+barn to retrieve a bottle of vodka and some shot glasses. The setting and low light was a *lot* like some locations in S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which freaked me out a little at first

Quality, in a not kind of way

What I especially like is that they're trying to sell 3D through polarised glasses as something new, when apparently it was mostly done with the same technology back then too. The differently coloured lenses of other attempts at 3D just became a more iconic image.

I just found the source for that flowers image, it was The Big Caption. Fantastic.

I have two things to contribute to this right now, both of which made me choke with laughter and are kind of the opposite of recommendations. First, an alternative ending for Lost (spoilers!) Second, one of the finest film reviews I've read, of Sex and the City 2.

Gah, it's started requiring a sign in since I saw it yesterday. You can see the shots still on the guy's deviantart account: http://madmaximus83.deviantart.com/ Really incredible work; reminds me of the stuff AngelHeart used to do with Unreal

Learn to sweat Not joking, I used to really hold back from exercising because I didn't like getting sweaty. Accept sweatiness and your exercise will be better

Ben! Birthday Ben! Hope it's a good one

Something to do with Ada Lovelace, but yeah, not many details around. C4 are funding a bunch of indies right now. They have an education budget, and decided that rather than spend it all on TV programming (which comes in at about £100K per hour unless you have the economies of scale of something like, say, Eastenders), they'd try commissioning games. So far things like 1066, Smokescreen and Routes have apparently shown really good engagement compared to telly...

Maybe. It would have been an XBLIG game rather than XBLA, as I understand, and they tend not to make as much. It's still funded by Channel 4 Education, and while I don't know details of any of those deals, I'm pretty sure they're not fucking developers over like a normal publisher might. Also, as Dan said today:

+1 for Four Lions. I found it both hilarious and confusing, in that Fessal was by far my favorite character, and again with the confusion It's a headfuck which I applaud Morris for writing. It's a hilarious comedy about people doing something exceptionally malicious and brutal to, well, people just like you and those you know (n.b. I am not trying to emphasise ways in which people are diffrunt) Brass Eye could be a bit obtuse, but this is a really direct bolt of confusion. A lot of people I've mentioned it to have reacted really badly to even the idea of a comedy about suicide bombers, and it's exactly one of the things that should exist to boot them out their complacent images of moustache twirling bogeymen. Yes

Privates neutered for Xbox Live Arcade

Particularly the harder levels with attractors. I frequently play one for five to ten minutes, then reach a threshold where I could win, except the reaction mass needed to get to something, even slowly, is often enough to reduce me to prey just before I reach them. I understand that movement is about restraint, and am content to make small adjustments and wait when it's necessary to, but it gets really dull. I'm sick of doing everything well for many minutes at a time, then one hurdle near the end of a level undoing it all in seconds

I've decided on a rule: If I stop enjoying a game, it gets deleted from the backlog. I loved Osmos at first, but the later levels get so hard so fast that I felt the difficulty was completely at odds with the aesthetic. Nothing with music that calm should make me so irate, but trying to micromanage orbits at such tolerances became a horrible mixture of difficult and dull.

Take the video ID off the URL (excluding and "&player" type stuff on the end) and surround it with youtube tags: YOUTUBE]dTvtFp_iPKc[/YOUTUBE (First and last square brackets missing because code tags don't disable youtube ones). Argh argh Jesus wept! I was assuming that was from the early 90s, then spotted the 360 pads The website recovers some hilarity from the horror, especially if you imagine this in the same voice used in the podcast for the batman trading card:

Ditto on the money/time thing for games. There seems very little point in pirating when it's so easy to build up a backlog anyway. I really like digital stuff. Physical stuff is a massive pain in the balls for me, cluttering up where I live and busting my back when I move. The more things I can have as information rather than goods the better, but I have always had minimalist preferences. It's a little odd to me that with something as walled as XBLA or PSN, people so readily accept that they can't resell or send back for a refund. It's like the difference in conditions for delivery never cross a lot of people's minds; I suppose they're enough steps away from retail that people just don't expect it to work in the same way.

That's a kind offer, but you sent me a bunch of games before, so I think this one should go to someone else.

Yes yes yes, ace stuff! Recently, I've picked up a fair bit of ambient. I used to listen to a lot of stuff like Tim Hecker, until I realised it was making (or perhaps helping me to stay) pretty depressive. Recently I've picked up Stars of the Lid (advise ignoring trippy psychedelic video): w_kHO7M7Bzc and Machinefabriek: Lzjt5hHp9VE Which have a much more beautiful mood to them. ------ I also used to absolutely fucking loathe dubstep. My boss would play it on trips in the car, and I'd be thinking "What the fuck is this?". Then I ended up in a club playing it with mates and tried dancing to it. Ever since it's made me wriggle. Dubstep is for dancing to! CoIZ3jWoGPA

Happy birthday Thunderpeel! You too nappi! Sorry, I missed this. Yes

All gone! I'll get them in the post tomorrow.