Ain't It Always The Way?

I popped out earlier today to start restocking my fridge now that I'm back home, but deliberately didn't get everything on my first trip because I didn't want to overload myself. I'd taken two re-usable carrier bags and filled them comfortably.

The plan was to pop out again after lunch, but several distractions got in the way (not Skyward Sword... so far...) and I haven't been out yet...

...And now it's raining.

I'm debating whether or not to go out anyway. The urgent shopping is done, it's really just a matter of filling in a few extras, so I really don't need to. On the other hand, I'd rather it be done today than put it off another day, and risk changing my mind tomorrow and not bothering after all.

And now it's heading toward dinner-time...

Flying on Loftwings, Crawling in Dungeons

Playing the latest Zelda game, Skyward Sword, is a strange experience. Now I'm about 6-7 hours in, I can see why some folks have complained about the forced use of the WiiMote for sword control but, frankly, if the alternative is awkwardly-mapped analogue stick control, I'm happy swinging around like a loon.

So far, I'm finding it easier to get into than Twilight Princess was, though how much of that is due to my (now fairly extensive) experience of that game, and how much is due to it being slightly easier to play, I do not know. It's got all the fussy platforming (auto-jump can be a real pest), all the cleverly placed switches, and all the hidden secrets of the previous game, but somehow seems faster-paced.

Control is generally pretty fluid, with alternate weapons, shields/objects and dowsing options accessed by holding down a button (B, - and C, respectively), dragging the pointer over the required setting, then releasing the button. Far quicker than 'enter menu, select object, exit menu', since all can be accomplished in one reasonably smooth motion, once you get used to it.

Actual movement and fighting controls have gone a bit... squiffy... several times, most notably while fighting Ghirahim for the first time, when the nunchuck either stopped responding entirely, or loses sensitivity in some directions.

Speaking of that fight, if that's a taste of things to come, I suspect I won't be completing this one anytime soon... The first phase is beyond annoying - having to 'fool' Ghirahim by holding your sword in one direction, than attacking in another? I'm not sure even WiiMotion Plus is quite good enough for that. Or maybe it's just my ham-fisted swings that aren't precise enough.

Still, the fact that I got there (and beat him on my fourth or fifth attempt) suggests that Skyward Sword may be just the teeniest bit easier.

Then again... There have been many moments where I've caught myself thinking "Well, in Twilight Princess, there was a puzzle that did this... I wonder if I should try that here..?". And it's not as if there's a lack of helpful hints available within the game. And doesn't it like reminding me about them?

Flying Link's Loftwing is certainly easier than I was expecting, despite my rubbish attempts at steering (to be fair, I'm just as bad at driving games, when it comes to oversteering in one direction, then overcompensating in the other), but I do sometimes get the buttons for 'look down' and 'dive' confused... though that hasn't been fatal yet.

What was fatal - repeatedly, but thankfully not in a way that results in a 'Game Over' screen - was a particular bit of vine swinging in the forest temple. Two vines to get from one (high) platform to another (low) one to retrieve a key, and it took me at least six attempts before I discovered - quite by accident - that I can shimmy up or down the rope when it's at rest... which makes it much easier to make the jump to the second vine.

After that, it's easy.

The Beetle is a cool gimmick, and certainly makes it easier to (a) round up some of the less accessible items, (b) inconvenience the large spiders just long enough to pounce on them with one's sword and (c) hit those otherwise impossible-to-reach switches.

In real-world news, I seem to have come down with a sore throat/cold. Thankfully still in its early stages, so I may yet defeat it...

The Traditional Christmas Summary

Obviously, while staying with my folks, my internet access is limited - I need only ask, of course, but their machine is so slow and its location offers no privacy, so blogging is entirely out of the question. Most years, I take notes... This year... let's just say it wasn't completely uneventful, but I hardly felt the need to write anything down to jog my memory.

Things kicked off a couple of days before Christmas, when I realised I wasn't sleeping very well. This would either mean I was going to carry on sleeping badly, the situation exacerbated by the game of Musical Bedrooms we'd be playing, and probably falling asleep during Christmas day, or just that I was overwhelmed by Christmas Spirit, and just really, really excited.

The former is more likely, isn't it?

I'd also failed to pack properly before the morning of Christmas Eve, so much of my morning was spent cramming things into the larger backpack I'd borrowed to carry the largest, heaviest present. One present, my clothes (3 days worth, in case I had to stay an extra day due to the train strike) and my washbag took up all the space in the backpack, so the remaining presents were slung into a large carrier bag.

After turning off my boiler - a very mild winter suggested little risk of frozen pipes within the two or three days I'd be away - I actually managed to leave my flat without realising I'd forgotten something and having to unlock to retrieve it... It happens, once in a while. Normally I leave the flat at least twice before actually setting out.

Getting over to my folks was no different from any other day, other than the huge weight on my back. Considering the trouble I'd had putting the backpack on, I didn't fancy taking it off for a seat, only to have to put it back on only a few minutes later, so I stood with my carrier bag and my backpack. When I decided to put the heaviest present in the backpack, I knew it was the best option - the load would be spread evenly, and I wouldn't have to keep switching it from hand to hand. What I hadn't figured on was that, having been largely inactive for most of a year, even carrying such a load on my back made walking the short distance (not quite half a mile, at a guess) between the station and my folks' place one of the most exhausting things I've recently done. Lucky for me I didn't decide to play it safe and take the long route... Sure, my Grandmother got mugged once, walking the quick way, but it seemed unlikely to happen to someone of my age and size, in broad daylight... And the local population has changed quite a bit since then.

When I arrived at my parents' front door, I was very eager to shed my load. It has hampered somewhat by my winter coat being a bit large and getting in the way of the straps, but I got there eventually, and a profound sense of relief flooded my entire being. The chances of having to head home with anything like the same load were exceptionally slim, since I had more than a shrewd idea what I was getting.

My mother was already buzzing around the kitchen, preparing her schedule and ensuring Christmas Day's foodstuffs were in the process of thawing. My father had been dispatched to the local shops to acquire a wide roll of foil for the turkey, because they only had a small amount of the standard roll size. While awaiting his return, my mother told me about a 'possible almost break-in' when last they'd visited my sister's family. Apparently a pair of 'youths' had been turning up on doorsteps with some cock-and-bull story about the gas supply. Neighbours both sides had sent them packing, but one neighbour had heard some commotion at my parents' front door, and called our other neighbours to ask if my folks were around. Since they weren't expected back till the next day, other neighbour popped outside and told the youths to clear off. Neighbourhood Watch in action.

My father eventually returned with not one, but two rolls of foil - one of the larger, 'Turkey Roast Size', the other standard 'just in case', because he wasn't sure the larger size was large enough. The local supermarket had been cleaned out (one shop assistant told my father "there were three rolls on the shelves not an hour ago!", clearly underestimating how fast things move in retail. On Christmas Eve. When everyone realises they don't have enough foil for the turkey.

And that's about as eventful as it got on Christmas Eve. There was so little on television, I joked about grabbing the VHS tape of the anime adaptation of E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series (heavily truncated, heavily Star Wars influenced, and far heavier on tentacles than I remember the books being), only to be told that there was no longer a working VHS player in the house.

Of course, it turned out that plenty of vaguely interesting stuff had been on in the afternoon...

While I hate to admit it, I starting thinking quite soon after arriving that I should have left it later before heading over... it's far too quiet over there, unless there's lots of news to share.

I went to bed in my old bedroom, feeling it rather warmer than I remember it being when I actually lived there. In fact, part way through the night, I ended up kicking off the duvet.

Christmas Day was very much a case of 'same old, same old', but with the addition of a very lively, loud and bossy toddler. My young niece is speaking much more clearly every time I see her, but now tends to talk through her dummy (not quite sure why she still has a dummy, but there we go). Grandmother had very little to say for herself - I suspect she was a little overwhelmed, considering she left quite early in the day, but it could also be that she's talking less because she's aware that she does tend to repeat herself... who knows? My brother-in-law was keen to show off his new phone and netbook/tablet thing.

I should mention that lunch didn't go exactly to plan... Even with an extra pair of hands (mine, specifically), the schedule slipped ever so slightly, so the home-made 'pigs in blankets' weren't quite cooked, the parsnips never left the oven (and weren't even particularly browned when they emerged after the main course), and no gravy was made. Thankfully, both the turkey and the gammon were moist, tender, and full of flavour, so gravy really wasn't needed. The few 'pigs in blankets' that were served up turned out to be far better than the usual shop-bought efforts. I mean, OK, we didn't hand-make the mini sausages, but I did hand wrap each one with a quarter of a (large) rasher of streaky bacon. I may be forced to  make some of my own... though I'm not sure whether I want to do mini sausages or full-size...

In one of her more talkative moments, speaking to my niece, Grandmother made a comment about going back to 'auntie'... Quite how she thought niece was my daughter, I cannot fathom... but, then, she does seem to think she has more than one grandchild...

Presents are certainly becoming a less important feature of Christmas Day... None of ours were opened until after the Queen's Speech which, in turn, was after Christmas Lunch. I got pretty much exactly what I'd predicted (Futurama movies boxed set, Zelda: Skyward Sword limited edition, Terry Pratchett's Snuff). Grandmother didn't actually open her presents... She started half-heartedly tugging at the paper, muttering the usual excuses about it being such a shame to ruin the paper, then stashed everything in her handbag. There was a small misunderstanding with that present, in that it was delivered to its recipient by my niece, with my sister reading the attached card. When she said it was from me and "for grandma" for some reason, I thought there had been a mix-up with my present for our mother (niece's grandmother). Helpfully, my sister brought everyone's attention to my confused expression, highlighting the fact that I actually had no idea what 'I' had bought my Grandmother..

On my behalf, my mother had picked up a pair of gloves for my brother-in-law. They were a special kind of glove with contacts on the thumb and index finger of each hand, designed to enable one to use touch-screen interfaces without having to remove the gloves. Very useful... Just the thing for looking up Google Maps whilst out in the wilderness with scouts on cold, dark nights.

Niece is still being affected by what I call 'Present Fatigue', where there is a very definite limit on what she can handle being given over a short period of time. Typically, my present it handed to her after she's reached this limit, and so the kiddie-sized electronic keyboard I'd picked up for her elicited not joy but a fit of tears. She seemed to warm to it later, thankfully.

A smattering of Christmas TV was viewed, including the festive Doctor Who. At an hour, I felt it had probably been edited rather harshly - several conversations seemed quite heavily truncated - but, overall, I thought it was fantastic. Further proof, as if any were needed, that Steven Moffat is a far better writer of Who than RTD ever was: a small but powerfully touching, heartwarming sci-fi tale with genuine emotional impact... and no shouting or posturing from the 900 year old Time Lord, no big explosions, and none of the damp squib 'high stakes' of the David Tennant Christmas Specials.

Sleeping arrangements changed for my second night. Sister and husband occupied their usual spot - sister's old bedroom - while niece took my old room and I took my folks' room, leaving them in sleeping bags downstairs. Not the best arrangement, but with me living on my own while sister, brother-in-law and niece alternate between their respective families over Christmas and Boxing Day each year, it all gets rather complicated. My parents' room was, if anything, even hotter (and with a much thicker duvet) so I slept very poorly and, again, ended up kicking off the duvet.

I took the first opportunity to return home - brother-in-law offered me a lift, in an almost uncharacteristic act of generosity - and settled myself back in easily enough.

It occurred to me that my digestive system had slipped into 'travel' mode, which basically locks most of it up so I don't need to worry about visiting lavatories on planes, on trains, or in motorway service stations. Not quite appropriate to Christmas with my folks, but I guess the Boxing Day tube strike had got me more worried than I thought. Rather foolishly, I took some Senokot to help things get back to normal, but ended up waking up around 4.30am with a very urgent need to visit my bathroom. Strangely, that seemed to be the worst of it... I ate very cautiously today, but it seems to all be OK now.

Didn't play Zelda until today (er... yesterday, now)... Partly just dreading the start of another new game, and wondering if I'll have the staying power to complete it. It's looking pretty good, though... the motion-controlled sword fighting has been easier than I'd expected so far, so maybe the increased precision offered by WiiMotion Plus has finally been adequately tapped.

I'm still not sleeping properly (have you seen the time on this posting?!), but hopefully that'll clear up in the coming days. The last thing I need is another full-on bout of insomnia.

Barriers, And The Breaking Thereof

Believe it or not, for most of this year I have been suffering a terrible Writer's Block.

Actually, scratch that... I'm not sure I'm quite ready to consider myself 'a Writer'. Let's just say "there were things I was intending to write this year that, for reasons of depression and general incoherence of thought, I have thusfar been unable to write".

I've been able to blog reasonably well (apart from the silences of variable length) but blogging doesn't exercise the same muscles as 'Creative Writing: Fiction'. It is quite clear from this blog that I can write at length about essentially nothing.

Part of my trouble is that, when I start to have story ideas, they just don't seem to end. From many years ago, I have notes on eleven stories based around one particular protagonist, in addition to the two which are complete and the one that's been 'in progress' since 2003 (last worked on in 2004). From that set of notes sprung the seeds of two more series, each one based on another protagonist related to the first... and the vague possibility of a fourth series.

Then, about three years ago, ideas started streaming into my head about rebooting an idea I had way back in the early/mid 90s. Things still pop into my head for that (three volume) story, but only odd little details that could be worked in... the story isn't quite straight in my head yet... something is missing, or just not lucid enough.

[Addendum: this three-volume epic also contains another three volume epic of metafiction, though whether it would be worth attempting to write it out longform, or only the bits that might be relevant or interesting, I'm still not sure...]

More recently, having been utterly disillusioned by Torchwood (I gave up on Miracle Day about halfway through episode 2 or 3... But I'll probably force myself to watch it eventually), I came up with what I believe is a viable format for rebooting the series. Fan-fiction is one thing... this - seriously - is something else...

Once in a while (well, twice so far), a friend of mine decides that she'll forgo the traditional kind of birthday/Christmas present, and ask me to write a story. While this is easy on my wallet, it is far from easy on my mind. I find myself feeling quite terrorized... that I'm being coerced into an act of creative writing, and that the act of coercion will somehow undermine the creativity of the process.

Based on the evidence thusfar produced (under 900 words for the first story, just over 4,500 for the second!) nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, I'm not one to be pleased as punch with my own work... generally, I'm far more critical of anything I do than anyone else I know, and it's not just false modesty.

There's an old story about an author who would start his day's writing with about half a story... and, by the end of a hard day's work, he'd have about a quarter of a story. I'm not quite like that (well, sometimes...) but I am reluctant to work on something unless it's clear in my head or, at the very least, unless several of the characters are 'talking' to me clearly and regularly. Most of my stories begin in the form of dialogue between characters, which just pops into my head, completely at random and generally at the least convenient moment possible. I've told many people that I've forgotten more story ideas than I'd ever be able to write, because I just wasn't able to take notes when they occurred.

I know, I know. A smart phone would help, these days.

So when my friend this year requested a 'Torchwood at Christmas' story, I inwardly cringed... and then, almost immediately, came up with two possible storylines.

And I'm no stranger to that phenomenon. The first time she asked me for a story, I came up with two ideas quite quickly, but then the final, not-quite-900-word epic was something completely different, which occurred to me late one night, several weeks after the story's due date... and which was infinitely superior to either of the other two ideas.

Of the two ideas I had for 'Torchwood at Christmas', I favoured one (because it seemed more interesting and less emotionally challenging). Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on it... actually writing it out, for a change, rather than just 'developing notes'. To begin with, I was writing it out by hand, staying away from computer and the distracting allure of teh interwebs. By the time I'd got halfway through (more or less) I decided I'd better get back to the computer (hrrrrrrr... must... resist... internet...) and start typing, lest I make myself late my transcribing an entire story from my drunken spider handwriting into something both readable and electronically portable.

I took a couple of short breaks to deal with chores (and - ahem - blog, albeit briefly) and, later in the day, to watch a bit of television... but I finally completed the story to my satisfaction at about a quarter to one this morning.

And then found myself unable to sleep because my mind was racing.

Although, to be fair, it's been like that for a few days now... Maybe it's seasonal excitement, but I am back in a slightly insomniac state.

On the bright side, though, one more finished story. And on time, too.

Can't be bad...

I Could Kick Myself Sometimes

Considering how long I've been working with Photoshop (and PaintShop Pro), you'd think I'd have kept more of my layered .PSD files and suchlike... But, whenever I do digging in my archives, all I find is JPEGs and GIFs.

By and large, and in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a massive problem... I mean, if nothing else, anything I did back then I could do much better now... I still have all the original sketches from which I produced the final, colourised works in Photoshop (or PSP or, occasionally, if I was feeling masochistic, CorelDraw)... And yet it would be interesting to see how I did what I did about ten years (and... what, three or four computers?) ago, versus what I can do now.

I can't even remember now if my first PC was a top-of-the-range 486 or one of the early Pentiums. But that's another story.

The real bugger is that I have a fair few images lurking around at 10-year-old web resolutions (back when a high res monitor was still only 640x480), when I'm fairly certain the originals would have been much higher res. I've pretty much always had this thing about working at a high resolution, then downsampling the finished article...

...And then, it would seem, deleting the high resolution files...

...Probably to save on hard disk space, back when 120Mb was considered generous, and CD writers weren't exactly common or cheap.

Quite amazing, how times change... Now, 120Gb doesn't get you very far.

That's A Wrap

I was starting to think I wouldn't get round to wrapping all my Christmas presents before Saturday morning - which would be foolish - so I somehow convinced myself to do it today. Turns out that buying wrapping paper in Marks & Sparks was a good move, because the reverse side of their rolls is marked with a 1cm grid, thus making it far easier to (a) cut the required amount of paper and (b) keep the cuts straight.

Because, y'know, I'm good with scissors, but can't keep a straight line on rolls of wrapping paper.

And, with the presents are wrapped, I went looking for carrier bags suitable for transporting them back to my folks' place. I have two stashes of carrier bags. One under my sink, and one in a carrier bag (naturally) in the hall by my phone table. The latter is a random selection of bags of different sizes, without rhyme or reason... generally not grocery shopping bags, though. The former... well, that was just a mess. I basically stuff bags in the cupboard under the sink and slam the door closed before they all come tumbling out again.

Because I'm really that organized.

While I'm happy to report both that it turned out to be a real goldmine and that I've now even tidied up in there (more than half the bottom shelf is now clear, and the loose bags are contained within - yes - a large carrier bag which now occupies only half the top shelf, meaning I can actually see the pipes again), I did get a bit of a scare out of the experience.

Well, not a scare, as such.

Put it like this: You know how rodents will shred anything - plastic bags, cardboard food boxes, etc - to make their bedding?

Yes. I did. I found a shredded plastic bag. But only one. And, mercifully, no rodents.

Briefly, I had considered what I might do if I found a mouse loose about my house (imagine a broad Scottish accent for best results... That's not what I sound like, but nor would it sound like "a mice lice abite may hice" if I were to say it - I'm certainly not from those parts of London - but a Scottish accent would reference an old song), since I don't really have any sensible way of containing such creatures. I did once catch a small mouse over at my parents' house using an array of about five tall drinking glasses laid out on their sides on the floor of the lounge, between the door and the nearest sofa (behind which the mouse had hid), and then kept it contained until my folks got back home simply by standing the glass. They now keep mouse traps all over the ground floor, rather than getting another cat, because the death of our third was just as unbearable to my mother as the other two.

But I digress...

There wasn't really anywhere - other than a drinking glass - I could keep a captured mouse for any length of time, so it was extremely fortunate that the shredded bag was just that - a single, solitary shredded Tesco carrier bag. There was no evidence either of the presence of a rodent, or to explain what had happened to the bag... so, while it's a mystery, it's one I shouldn't be losing any sleep over.

In other news, my flat felt so hot today that I actually turned off the central heating in the late afternoon/early evening. Such a strange turn of events, given how cold it's been lately. I've been shivering away while wearing a jumper with the heating on... Now, suddenly, we have spring-like weather.

Call me a cynic, but I don't think winter is over just yet...

Cool Find

You know how, when you're stuck for a bookmark, you reach for the first thing of a vaguely appropriate dimensions that's flat enough to stick in a book? Envelopes, bills, business cards, shopping lists... that kind of thing?

And you know how, when you find them, by sheer coincidence, years later, you kick yourself for using something so utterly inappropriate, or random, or important?

Funny thing: Years ago (2002, by my reckoning), I had a holiday in Auckland with my folks. To cut a long story short, up until a couple of weeks before flying out there, it wasn't just a holiday for me... I was going to be meeting up with an online acquaintance. Needless to say, she cancelled on me, so the whole thing started out as a rather depressing exercise, not least because we spent about 20 hours in the air, and our luggage got delayed in Singapore.

When we got there, we didn't really have any plans, so our first few days were spent basically bumbling about. My father also had a concussion due to smacking his head on the door frame of the van that took us from the airport to the hotel. That made life very interesting (who knew that reusing water bottles could lead to potentially disasterous microfractures in the plastic? Me neither).

Once we got our acts together, we started booking ourselves tours and walking excursions, and venturing to more interesting restaurants on the waterfront.

Being that sort of person, I snatched up business cards left, right and centre and, clearly, felt the need to use two of these cards as bookmarks in the book I was re-reading at the time... Because, today, when I grabbed the book from my shelves to read out a section to a visiting friend, I found them.

One is for an Italian restaurant called Milano, out in the Viaduct Harbour. I remember it had been recommended to me by a Kiwi nurse I'd been in contact with around that time (oh, I'm almost feeling nostalgic for my early forays into internet dating!). Turns out it doesn't have a particularly good reputation these days... and their website's URL redirects to a webshop selling handbags... Oh well.

The other was a proper business card, handed to me by one of our tour guides - a full day being driven around all over Auckland and its environs by a fellow named George. I'd link to the website listed on the card but that, too, seems to be gone... It's a real shame, because George was not just an excellent tour guide, but a real character, too. Coming from a farming background, he had a few choice words for the way business was conducted by that point (too many lawyers involved)... I'd like to think he's still going...

Getting Festive

Having spent a good chunk of yesterday over at my folks' place (ended up actually making my pie over there, rather than attempt to transport the finished product and, yes, it went down very well... but I have the remainder to polish off), I've been fairly inactive today. Not completely inactive, of course... I still seem to have some energy and inclination for arty stuff so, for no more reason than simply doing something festive, I grabbed a sketch I did around this time of year a decade ago, scanned it nice and fresh, and coloured it up in Photoshop.

Turned out pretty well... a bit scrappy, but I'm still very lazy when it comes to colouring things. Even managed to print out the finished product, just for fun, and to make sure I'm getting something like continual usage out of my inkjet printer.

Considering I got it for my birthday, and I'm reasonably competent with computers and peripherals, I'm surprised it's taken me this long to unearth the paper quality settings... In one dialogue box, it seems to imply that the printer auto-detects the quality of paper being used, and adjusts its ink output accordingly. I'm not sure I trust that, and prefer to define 'high quality' myself, just in case. The real surprise, though, was that the setting did not appear to be in any way hidden.

Then again, I did get a firmware/software upgrade download a while back, so that may have altered and extended the functionality of the software...

This coming week, I really need to sort out Christmas presents... I've bought them all, but need to wrap them. My mother's is already wrapped (I had the sense to select gift wrap on my online order!), but presents for my father, sister and niece still need to be properly encased.

It's something I keep putting off simply because I'm no good at wrapping presents... I always seem to cut off either too much or too little paper, so the folding bits overlap themselves excessively, or don't quite meet, let alone overlap. And I'm not too good at making the folds, either...

Oh well... Practice makes perfect, they say...

Busy Little Bee

Not wanting to sound smug here, but I'm officially proud of myself for getting so much done this week.

Mind you, this is more 'catching up on old shit' than it is simply 'getting shit done'... And, in real terms, this is just one more thing added to my holding pattern of work that I can't really do anything with just yet.

Soon, though.

Hopefully.

But it's nice to get some sketching done so efficiently... After months of barely picking up my sketch book (other than to move it around), I've been able to put pencil to paper and come up with something really rather cool... And I have a couple of other ideas waiting to be worked on... And once I've done them, maybe I'll see how I get on with some of the myriad writing projects I've been neglecting. Some short stories would be cool.

And, tomorrow, I shall be heading over to my folks' place in the afternoon. The plan is to make my lime pie over there, so I can share it out more easily and get some feedback other than my own. It's a strange recipe, to be sure and, while the buzz of having picked up all the ingredients is more or less gone now (already!), I'm still looking forward to actually putting it all together.

Of course, I'll need to dash out in the morning to pick up a lime to grate for zest... but that's just one more thing in the list of things I should have done today, and would have done today were it not for getting the other things done far more quickly and smoothly than I had any right to expect.

Let's hope my pie goes down as well...

Oh, and the weather reports were right - there was a little snow this morning. Not sure when it started, as I was almost certainly asleep, but it was fluttering down when I got out of bed. There was too much rain still on the ground for any of the snow to settle - in fact, I'm surprised it was snow at all, considering it's still comparatively warm for the time of year - so, by the afternoon, it just looked as if it had been raining... but the skies by then were clearing up.

Whim Wanders

It's a funny old feeling when one of my whims takes me.

These strange ideas come to me and, all of a sudden, I have lots of energy, and all that energy goes into following it up. Sometimes I get bored or frustrated part way through (as is so often the case with any of my writing projects), and it just peters out. Other times, I actually complete whatever outlandish tasks I set myself and, for a while, I'm on a bit of a high. I'm not known for completing things, particularly tasks I set myself outside of the context of 'work', so there is a genuine sense of elation when I do... even more so when the thing I finish is something more substantial than a videogame...

And so, today, I went on a hunt for ingredients... These missions are normally doomed to failure because some important component if the list of things I'm looking for is never available either in my local shops or the larger supermarkets I can access by train or bus or, if I'm feeling up to a longer walk, by putting my legs and feet to good use for a bloody change.

Today was one of those days, so I pegged it over to the South Harrow branch of Waitrose (far easier now I'm more familiar with the most convenient route), with a list of ingredients I'd need for my own attempt at a Key Lime Pie. Now, obviously, I'm not going to find proper Key Limes in Waitrose, but the more common kind are acceptable and, let's face it, Waitrose sell a lime cheesecake and call it Key Lime Pie, so I can pretty much do as I please, within certain boundaries.

Just for a change, I actually found everything I was looking for.

OK, I did fudge it a little and, rather than buying some fresh limes, I ended up deciding to get lime juice in a little plastic squeezy bottle. It was either that, or buy four limes (at least) and a juicer, and then put in a whole lot of effort for very little citrus-flavoured reward.

But, let's face it, unless you start by cutting corners, you'll never know how much better it is to work with completely fresh ingredients.

There is one small drawback to this, though, and I may end up popping out tomorrow to see if I can find a lime, because the traditional recipe calls for lime zest to be grated into the pie mixture and on top when it's done. I have a grater, after all.

So, by the time I left Waitrose, I was feeling so good about my plan to hand-make a Key Lime Pie that I decided - what the hell - I'd walk home.

And I mananged to retrace my steps far more accurately than ever before.

So now I'm really feeling good about myself.

Just for a change.

20-ish minute walk over there, 20-ish minute walk back, laden with shopping (because, inevitably, I didn't stop with just getting the required ingredients), so I've had a far healthier day than my usual and succeeded in getting all (OK, most) of the stuff I need to execute my latest curious desire.

I'm probably going to wait till the weekend before actually attempting to make the pie, so it's not sitting in my fridge, with only me to eat it... Assuming my folks get back by then, I could pay them a visit and take the pie along.

I never cease to be surprised by how good it feels just to go out and take a walk... just a short break from being an internet zombie... Fresh(ish) air, birds twittering away (future generations may wonder how this is accomplished without internet access), people buzzing about. Being out in the cold isn't great (my skin absolutely hates the cold - my hands dry out and crack - so I wonder, vaguely, why I didn't go out much during the summer), but I've got my winter coat, so it's not too bad... and as long as we don't get hit by snow, it's a quick, healthy and cheap way to stock up in a supermarket that's rather better stocked than anything closer to home.

On the subject of cold, I made a rather silly discovery yesterday. I'd been wondering how my flat could be so cold if I've got the heating on as high as it was last year... but when I actually spent a bit of time paying attention to the dubious dials on the control panel, I realised that I'd got the central heating set somewhere just above 'tepid' so, while the radiators themselves felt quite warm, it shouldn't have been surprising that they barely heated the rooms. This error has since been rectified and, yes, I'm feeling much warmer now.

(So, why the post title referencing a German film director? Why not? Call it another whim. I'm allowed.)

Baby, It's Damp Outside...

I was going to write a post about the Nicholas Cage movie, Knowing, that was on last night (followed by White Noise 2: The Light, which I also watched)... but then I noticed just about every post recently has been about either a movie or a videogame, so I changed my mind. Shame, really, because I'd decided on the title: "What's the Point of Knowing?"

It's a bit of a pun, you see... because the question crops up during the movie, and it's a question the studio should have more rigorously contemplated before going into production.

There's other stuff to write about, of course...

Over the weekend, I went to see Puss In Boots... oh, shit, that's a movie, isn't it? OK... Next!

My folks have had to skip on over to my sister's place to look after the baby (not that young Kate is really a baby anymore... 2 and a half, and toddling merrily) because she's still poorly, and my sister has to get back to work. While Kate is unwell (particularly considering the nature of the illness - I shan't go into details) the childminder won't take her for fear of creating an epidemic among the toddlers. That wouldn't be pretty.

By this time last year, we'd had huge amounts of snow... this year, it's clearly much warmer (despite the central heating in my flat suggesting otherwise) because we're suffering torrential downpours of rain. While it's really chucking it down, I can't even hear the trains going by... it's really that loud. I mean, seriously... holy crap, is it loud...

Naturally, I'm checking my ceilings - hall and bedroom mainly, as I know the bathroom is a writeoff - and, thankfully, can't see any signs of the leaks spreading... so far.

It's kind of funny... Last year, London ground to a halt under a couple of inches of snow (I'm sure certain officials would say it was more than 'a couple of inches' but, in town, it never really got deeper than that)... This year, probably the same volume of water is falling from the skies, but in a different form... and each downpour is over far quicker than snow would have been.

So, much as I'm concerned about the rain... I'm rather glad it is just rain for the moment. And, of course, it makes a skewed kind of sense that last year looked like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and this year is turning out like Silent Hill: Downpour.

I can't say I'll regret the passing of this year too much... Well, that is, I regret that I didn't do more with it... but, all told, considering my bank balance only went downward, I'd be in a bigger mess than I currently am if I'd done much more with the year.

Suffering By Comparison

Many years ago (1993, to be precise) I saw a movie called Tombstone, starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, based around the notorious gunfight at the OK Corral (the subject of about a billion Westerns, back in their heyday). The following year, another movie came out with a similar setting, Wyatt Earp, starring Kevin Costner and Dennis Quaid... And today, I had the misfortune of watching it for the first time.

Actually, that's unfair. It's not a bad movie but, while the former went for a contemporary take on the Hollywood Western, this film almost seems to think it's a biopic. On TV (with ad breaks) its running time is over three hours, and yet it strives to fit everything in (and I mean everything) by picking certain events, and spending huge amounts of time playing them out in as much detail as possible without dealing with every single moment of Wyatt Earp's life. Setup for the infamous confrontation commences about halfway through, but it still manages to avoid getting exciting.

Part of it, I suspect, is that Kevin Costner has never managed to be as engaging a lead as Kurt Russell, or Val Kilmer... or, making matters worse, his co-star Dennis Quaid. The biggest problem, for me, was that it just tried to cram so much in, there was no real time for character development. One minute, Wyatt's a precocious teenager proposing to his sweetheart, next he's grief-stricken and in the gutter, mugging people to get by, next he's been deputised. Event after event after event, with little to show how or why the man found himself in those situations.

Dennis Quaid's turn as Doc Holliday is very different to Val Kilmer's clownish interpretation... I'm really not sure which I prefer. On the one hand, Quaid's more sombre take is rather more commanding (not a good thing when playing opposite Costner), but Kilmer's was more entertaining. Each fits their movie, I guess...

If it came down to moustaches, Tombstone wins by a mile. Of facial hair.

I've been experiencing a bit of a slump lately... Last week got off to a good start, but then basically collapsed into ennui... But then, today, I managed to bash out two fairly quick drawings... And they turned out really well. Both are intended to eventually become part of a T-shirt design... but, based on the way that little sideline is going, it'll probably just sit around doing nothing, even if I complete all the pictures.

It's nice to find that my sketching is becoming surer - less erasing - but it seems my inking isn't getting much better. That said, that's as much to do with the quality of paper I'm using as it is the steadiness of my hands... Plus, a 0.1mm pen I bought recently doesn't seem significantly finer than my usual 0.7mm...

That might be something to do with my hands, particularly my habit of putting too much weight on a pen... It does look as though I may have damaged the nib...

Interference

Well, I'm glad I got up early(ish) today, and made a start on one of the things I wanted to do because, right now, I have a horde of screaming girls outside my flat.

Earlier, they were confined to the flat next door... but now they're loose.

And, by God, can they make some noise...

They're occupying the main balcony, downstairs from me (small mercy they're not clattering about on the mezzanine, since that's made of metal!) but the racket is carrying very well.

Time to put on some obnoxiously loud music.

I Am Having A Serious WTF Moment

I noticed in a TV guide recently that there was a new version of Charlie's Angels - one of these terribly fashionable reboots - running on Wednesdays on E4. Now - guilty confession - I'm quite a fan of the two movies, starring Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz, and am secretly a little bit disappointed that they only made the two, but TV reboots of old series have tended to be (a) a little bit crap, lacking the charm of the original and (b) cancelled very early on, sometimes not even managing one full season.

So, out of curiosity, I switched on to the second episode today (missed the first one because I just didn't know to look for it last week). Imagine my surprise when:

• It turns out to star, amongst others, Rachel Taylor (from the first TransFormers movie)
• It's 'younger, sexier' take on Bosley is played by Ramon Rodriguez (from the second TransFormers movie)
• This episode features a local cop/ex-fiance of one of the Angels played by that guy from the Old Spice ads

Drew Barrymore is listed as one of the producers, too... but it looks as though the series got cancelled. Not surprising, really... it's silly, campy stuff, but completely po-faced, making it just like every other terrible TV reboot from the last few years.

Random Observation

Actually, two observations, but both relating to water temperature.

Overnight, we seem to have slipped into Winter (note the capitalisation - this is proper Winter, not "brrr... innit chilly?"). There was frost on all the roofs I could see, on the trees, and even some on the ground... and the temperature inside my flat, in spite of having the central heating on all night, and set higher than it had been over the last few weeks, was pretty damn near stone cold.

Right by the radiators, it's not too bad... but my computer sits at the opposite end of the room, and it's been cold over here all day. Just so you know, I'm wearing thick socks and a jumper.

I bet you've always wondered "What's he wearing when he blogs..?"

Deny it all you like.

So, today, I took the step I was intending to avoid, and turned on the radiator in the hall, acting on the possibility that my hall had been acting as a heat sink, and drawing the warmth out of the lounge, bedroom and bathroom. This seems to have improved the situation somewhat, but it's still a tad chilly. My fingertips and toes feel cold, and I've had a few attacks of the shivers, but I'm not uncomfortable...

Thing is, I'm pretty sure the heating is on higher now than it was last year, and I don't remember being cold last year. In fact the whole point of my restraint with the central heating this year was that, last year, I ended up paying through the nose for the privilege of not having to wear a jumper indoors, and fuel prices have risen quite dramatically since then.

Still, it's already December so, however I slice it, I'm pretty sure I've been using less gas this year than last... So far...

And then I come to do some washing up. Now, my boiler has separate dials for 'hot tap' and 'central heating'. I have moved the dial for 'central heating' but not the one for 'hot tap', and yet my tap water is now coming out much hotter than before. So far, I'm not complaining, but I am confused.

But when I start the washing up with a nice, hot bowl of water, the suds from my washing up liquid just don't seem to like it. Whereas, for the rest of the year so far, the water tended to be comparatively tepid, but the suds just kept going and going, now I can barely do the first few plates before the bubbles begin to disappear, and no matter how much more froth I produce by dunking and squeezing the sponge, it just doesn't stay.

I always thought increasing the temperature effectively reduced the 'hardness' of water, but a quick web search reveals that the reverse is true... So much for my grasp of chemistry.

I can't really win, can I?

Standing Tall

I mentioned in another recent post that I was keen to look up a film called The Fall, directed by Tarsem Singh. It's almost a cliché these days for a director to be referred to as 'a visionary' but, having now seen that film (his second Hollywood outing, which he co-wrote, produced and directed, and which hit the screens six years after The Cell), I honestly believe that title is well-deserved by Singh.

It's another tale of alternate realities - so very much in vogue right now - but even its elements of high fantasy are grounded in its real world. Picture a little girl, bored and lonely, in hospital because her arm was broken in a fall. By chance, one day, she meets a movie stuntman, also injured in a fall (jumping from a rail bridge onto a horse's back... though, supposedly, the star for whom he substituted performed the better take anyway). He dazzles her with an epic story of five heroes, each sworn to kill the same villain for the wrongs he wrought upon them, but punctuates the narrative by asking small favours of the enraptured child. It's here that the story - both that of the girl and her new friend, the raconteur, and his tall tale of derring do - take a darker turn.

Lee Pace was a name completely unknown to me, but his performance as damaged stuntman Roy Walker and his imagined Red Bandit was understated, yet very powerful. Roy is facing the very real possibility that he'll never work again after his first job (one of his friends even going to far as to try to convince him that losing a limb isn't so bad!), he's heartbroken and he's suicidal. The Red Bandit, meanwhile, has sworn to avenge his brother's death at the hands of Governor Odious, and comes together with four other heroes (an African former slave, an Indian warrior, an Italian demolitions man... and Charles frikkin' Darwin, complete with huge furry coat, bowler hat and a hyper-intelligent monkey sidekick named Wallace) when all five are exiled by Odious to a small island.

After escaping, they encounter a mystic (something like a dryad) who directs them on their way toward their hated enemy and further adventure, and then a beautiful princess (Justine Waddell, better known to me as Estella in a TV adaptation of Great Expectations, also featuring Ioan Gruffudd and Charlotte Rampling) who is betrothed to the evil Governor.

For all the story's high adventure, this is no high-octane action movie. What set-pieces there are, are framed as works of art, rather than celebrations of testosterone and steel. Transitions between some scenes were so stunning that I sat there thinking "what the fuck just happened there? Did I really just see that?", and not paying attention as the new scene unfolded... And then there's the sudden switch to stop-motion animation for the scene following little Alexandria's accident in the Dispensary. Jarring and incongruous though it seemed at first, I ended up crying over it - somehow it was more powerful with dolls than it might have been with the live cast.

The scene following that, with Roy trying to confess his failings to the smitten child who's desperate for a happy ending, is utterly heart-breaking. He sets about tearing down the fantasy he built for her, while she begs him not to kill the hero. Meanwhile, he's struggling not only with his suicidal impulses, but with his guilt over sending the girl on the 'errand' that led to her new injury.

And all of this is presented in Tarsem Singh's trademark beautiful, opulent technicolour (the real world is rather muted and cold compared to the fantasy, but the links between them are clear, in the characters, the scenery, and even a few props), and with similarly wild costumes to Singh's other movies.

Honestly, I'm torn between wanting him to 'DIREKT MOAR FLIMS NAOW!!!1!1!', and to keep them as few and far between as required to keep them as magnificent and as passionately executed as The Fall.

This, dear reader, is what Cinema was invented for.

Bad Omens

Now that all the fuss surrounding Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code' has died down, and copycat books aren't as common, I have deigned to view the movie based upon that most famous work of conspiracy fiction, and was singularly unimpressed.

I'm not mad keen on Tom Hanks at the best of times (sorry, Tom, you spent too long playing the same 'nice guy' roles), but his character in this movie was almost entirely devoid of character (and not Hanks' fault, either) and his involvement in this plot seemed rather contrived. I've heard before that Mr Brown relies far too heavily, far too frequently, on deus ex machina and coincidence, but The Da Vinci Code was his most highly praised work, so I kind of expected better.

I don't doubt that the film is substantially dumbed down (thanks, Hollywood!), and Akiva Goldman's screenplay is not a patch on the work he did on A Beautiful Mind (let's just forget about Batman & Robin), so I suspect it's not as dumbed down as such a complex melange of folklore might otherwise have needed to be, had it been particularly convoluted in the first place.

On the upside, at least its final twist (which I saw coming fairly early on) wasn't centred on a character who only appeared in the last half hour of the film, but so much of the plot was revealed in the trailers, it almost seemed pointless to sit through the rest.

Audrey Tatou put in an excellent performance, though mainly speaking English, so she seemed rather wasted in the role (OK, the character she played was French but were the casting people relying on having a French actor to give the role credibility?)... and, ultimately, this was little more than a convoluted, slacker-free version of the story told in Kevin Smith's Dogma.

That might be a spoiler.

Recently, I watched the second and third films in the original Omen series when all three were shown back to back one evening. I believe I saw all of the first many years ago and, not being massively impressed by it (or the remake, which I turned off part way through!) so I figured I'd skip it this time round.

Damien: Omen 2 (for some reason dropping 'The' from the title) centres on his pre-teen years, specifically his time at a Military academy... and, aside from glaring people to death, Damien Thorn doesn't really do a great deal. Much (fatal) misfortune befalls anyone working within the Thorn empire who doesn't follow the 'global domination' angle, and it's made clear to young Damien that, as his nanny says in the first film, it's all for him. Ultimately, though, it's one of those films where you could look at some of the deaths and see horribly complex chains of coincidence rather than any direct, malign influence. Sure, that's just as unbelievable but, if a couple of train engineers leave their vehicle unattended and didn't put the brakes on properly, it's not inconceivable that it'll start rolling again. What is inconceivable is that (a) anyone standing in its path would fail to move out of the way and (b) no-one else in the train yard noticed that there was a runaway train on the same tracks as some unattended rolling stock that was still carrying cargo. To be honest, it didn't really stand on its own as a movie... proving that the concept of a trilogy where the middle part is just filler is not a new one.

The third film, The Final Conflict, does slightly better... but ends up just coming across as a desperate attempt to prove that Evil will never succeed, despite the rather compelling evidence to the contrary presented by the first two films. Sure, Damien gets his way for most of the film, and actually succeeds in bumping off an entire cabal of monks before even one of them can stab him with their suspiciously nail-like daggers. Sure, he has creepy conversations with a statue of Jesus, and there's a 'clever' bit (in the sense that I'm sure the film-makers were terribly pleased with themselves) where it appears that the statue is crying blood (because Thorn cut his hands gripping the crown of thorns). Sure, there's the bit where it appears that he somehow has the world at his feet thanks to the power of a disco ball in a cave... But he ends up getting done in in the most random fashion, by a woman he'd essentially conquered only a few scenes before. It is strongly implied that the Christ child must have been slain (among the hundreds of other babies killed throughout the film) and yet one character explains that, somehow, that one baby is safe and away from danger.

And then to have a vision of Christ to appear in a broken-out window as the resolution of the film just seemed cheap.

I did start to think that, in theory, there could have been a follow-up, because Damien may well have impregnated the woman who eventually kills him... but then I realised that his physical conquest of her was by means of anal sex, so that put an end to my speculation.

Of course, it turns out there was an 'Omen 4', made for Television... It seems to be about Delia, an adopted girl with psychic powers who - lo and behold - turns out to be the biological daughter of Damien Thorn. No mention is made of the biological mother, but one can easily believe that Mr Thorn was happily sowing his satanic oats for years. A few moments with Google reveals that Delia's mother was intended to be the woman who killed Damien but, for unspecified reasons, "this was dropped from the final film."

Weird...

Matters of Identity

I only briefly touched upon the death of one of my grandmothers a few years back but, for a completely random reason, I picked up the order of service from her funeral just moments ago. I'd always been somewhat proud of my 'mixed heritage' (using that term in the loosest possible sense because I'm entirely Anglo-Saxon), with a particular fondness for my globetrotting Welsh grandmother and her inability to pronounce any initial H ('Ospital, 'Otel, etc).

But it turns out there's a very important fact buried in the potted 'istory contained in that booklet.

She wasn't Welsh.

Not technically, anyway. She was born and raised in Wales, yes... but her parents were from Worcester and London (Highgate, fer crying out loud!).

All these years I've been happily telling people I'm a little bit Welsh (and they nodding sagely, saying that probably explains my morose tendencies), and it's all been a lie.

Well, fuck.

Film Noir Is Dead...

...Long Live Film Noir.

The other day, I caught a film on TV called 'Brick', starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the charmingly impish Emilie de Ravin. I may have mentioned in the past that I don't 'do' teen movies, but this is yet another exception to my oft-bended rule.

Had it been a radio play, it would come across as a pulp noir in the best Sam Spade/Mike Hammer tradition... but the film is set, largely, in an American high school. It centres on the investigations of a jilted boyfriend into his former girlfriend Emily's (de Ravin) death, and the circumstances leading up to it. Along the way, we meet a couple of femmes fatale (cleverly presenting them as the stereotypical 'nightclub canary' and 'gangster's moll' while remaining within the high school motif) and a teenage drug baron (Lukas Haas) who somehow manages to conduct his 'business meetings' while his mother potters about, offering his 'friends' cereal and juice.

Gordon-Levitt puts in a perfectly pitched, taciturn performance as Brendan Frye, the hard-boiled detective, obsessed by a case that hits too close to home, ignoring all the warnings that he might not like the story he's unravelling, picking fights with kids far bigger than him... And the whole film is so cleverly done that the fact that he's informing to his teachers, rather than 'the cops', isn't at all jarring to the story.

It sets up several Noirish twists, but doesn't trip on any of them, and the dialogue is peppered with the kind of frequently impenetrable slang one would expect to find in a Bogart movie.

Naturally, for this kind of film, it doesn't have a happy ending, even though (or should that be 'because'?) the protagonist succeeds in his task. In the end, you're kind of left wondering whose self-destructive behaviour was worse, Emily's or Brendan's..?

In other news, I'm getting a bit annoyed with myself over a few of my artistic endeavours. One is basically nearly done and exceedingly frustrating because I know it's not going to be as good as something else, so I'm just not inclined to finish it (and I've tried!). Another is only in its preliminary stages and I already believe it's going to be even worse than the other one. The last is really only at the concept stage, and I'm terrified to even start because, while the concept is utterly awesome, I just don't feel I'll be able to do it justice.

How fucking stupid.

Shades of Beige

The first time I saw a trailer for Immortals, it was all too easy to dismiss it as a cynical attempt to cash in on the success of 300, much like the pointless CGI remake of Clash of the Titans. It looked like Zack Snyder's motion picture graphic novel, it moved like Zack Snyder's movie, it even sounded like it. I was all set to ignore it completely.

Until, that is, I happened to notice it was directed by Tarsem Singh.

Here's a director who started out in music videos and commercials, and has found his niche in Hollywood directing trippy, arty, colourful movies with a peculiar, dreamlike quality. Immortals, meanwhile, is a big, popcorn-shifting action flick with a very limited colour palette (at least according to the trailer). How would such a director fare with such a commercial film?

Well, I can certainly say it could have done with more of his trademark colour. Much of the time, it looked as though it was there when they filmed, but subsequently became horribly desaturated in post-production. The 3D effect, as with so many other movies, is all but completely lost. There are many parallels, both visual and narrative, between Immortals and 300, and I doubt it will go down in history as one of Singh's finest movies, or among the best performances from its stars.

It's a lot better than I had expected... but neither as visually interesting as The Cell (though some of the costumes come close, and the gods' helmets are particularly wacky) nor as visceral as 300. Having seen it, though, I'm keen to track down another of the director's earlier films, The Fall, and the catch his next offering - a retelling of Snow White. Both are overflowing with his trademark colour, so they should be a real treat.

It's actually pretty amazing that Mirror, Mirror will be only Tarsem Singh's fourth time in the director's chair for a cinematic release... but it's good that he's sticking to the stranger films, which allow his particular style to shine through...

Skyward Ho? ...Um, No...

There's something very wrong with distribution if a new game for the Wii - basically on its last legs as far as third-party releases go - for which preorders have been open for more than a month, is sold out the day after its release.

Unless the shops only ordered enough to cover preorders plus a few extras to put on the shelves, of course.

I refer, as you may have inferred from the title, to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword... released in the UK yesterday, and not to be found anywhere in Harrow. Perhaps I should have headed to Uxbridge...

Then again, my whole 'shopping trip' today was notable by its lack of any actual shopping. Before looking for the game, I paid a visit on Harrow's large Tesco, to see if they carried anything useful in the Wright's Baking line, but all they seemed to have were bread mixes (Plain White and Ciabatta), none of the cake mixes. On the way back, I dropped in on South Harrow's Waitrose and was disappointed to find their selection was as limited as the Ruislip branch.

I could have walked down to South Harrow's Sainsburys, but my previous experience of that shop is that they have a very wide range of different products, but a similarly woefully small range within each product group, so I probably made the right call in coming home, disappointed as I was.

At the station, I even considered going on to Uxbridge, since they have a larger HMV, along with branches of Game, GameStation and Computer Exchange... but I didn't feel like paying the fare out and back again on the off-chance. There's a very strong likelihood I'll be heading out that way sometime soon anyway, and it gives everyone the chance to restock on the new Zelda game...

...And me, the chance to play a bit further in Twilight Princess before starting the new game...

Tin out of Tin

I can remember glancing over Hergé's books back in middle school. The library had hard-bound versions of a good few Tintin stories and, while I certainly spent time with them, I don't think I ever really took in the stories. Whether it was the bland art style or the possibility that they were in French, I don't recall ever actually reading one.

Nevertheless, I was aware of Tintin by reputation and, having watched a documentary about the character earlier in the week, the exciting trailers for the CGI movie proved tempting. The cast includes such cinematic luminaries as Andy Serkis (for once not playing a bad guy), Daniel Craig, the nigh-inseperable Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and Jamie Bell as the titular reporter.

I'd also looked into the videogame, as it looked like an updated, licensed spin on the ancient, original 2D Prince of Persia... turns out that's exactly what it is, but rather too easy for most of the reviewers.

The film, meanwhile, is a classic Spielberg adventure romp, very much in the vein of Indiana Jones. Plenty of action, thrills and spills all the way through, as well as lots of laughs, most often at the expense of Captain Haddock.

Considering my youthful ambivalence toward the character, I very nearly passed up on seeing this film, but I'm now very glad I didn't.

Prime Example

Having spent the last couple of days watching the whole of Season 1 of TransFormers Prime on YouTube, I have a few things to say about the experience.

Firstly, it is obvious from some of the comments from the uploaders that Hasbro and The Hub are taking a dim view of their intellectual property being recorded and uploaded to YouTube. Hardly surprising and, to be honest, I can't condone this practice. The background machinations of the contracts between Hasbro and The Discovery Channel - equal partners in The Hub - no doubt involve some kind of exclusivity agreement (and let's be generous and ignore the abrupt end to TransFormers: Animated that seems to have been a side-effect of the deal). The television broadcast of Prime naturally includes advertising, which benefits The Hub, while the very existance of Prime as a series benefits Hasbro because it's a 20-minute advertisement for their latest toy range. Nothing new there.

So when viewers record and upload the series to the internet - going to great pains to express that they don't claim ownership of the show and that "no infringement is intended", one cannot help but feel that they are merely filling a void which Hasbro and The Hub, in their ineffable wisdom, have neglected themselves.

For example, as a UK resident who doesn't feel the need to pay extra for another slew of TV channels I'll never watch, it's unlikely I'd ever see TransFormers Prime until it's eventual release on DVD... which could be more than a year away. In this day and age, I find it unfathomable that niether Hasbro nor The Hub have some kind of online content delivery offering anything more than clips. Undoubtedly, if such a system existed, it would be subscription-based, or pay-per-vew at least.

And while I'm reasonably interested in the TFPrime toys (moreso since seeing the Voyager size Optimus Prime - in photos from the SDCC and NYCC, rather than at Hasbro's booths at things like the London Expo, for example), the Animated/Live Action Movie hybrid aesthetic hadn't really grabbed me in the same way that the G1 fanwank that is the Classics/Universe/Generations toyline, or the overengineered brilliance of the movie line (not so much the Dark of the Moon range, more's the pity, considering that was the best film by far).

It's only having seen the series, thanks to these 'intellectual property thieves' on YouTube, that I'm beginning to feel vaguely compelled to actually buy them.

Seems like a win for Hasbro, if not The Hub... but surely that just shows that someone hasn't been properly covering all their bases.

The series itself is quite brilliant - consistency of character and storytelling that harks back to the quality of Beast Wars and Beast Machines, but with animation that rivals pretty much anything else on kids' television at the moment. Pixar it isn't... but I can certainly see TFPrime making the transition to the big screen, whereas Mainframe's series were well behind what was appearing in the cinemas even back when they first came to television.

It takes the form of your standard 'problem/lesson of the week', just like most kids' television these days, but it has a harder edge to its interpretation of the conflict between Autobots and Decepticons than any previous series, BW/BM included. Battles are far more brutal than anything from any previous series, one of the Autobots is killed off in the first half of the first episode, and it's very obviously final (apart from the prerequisite 'zombification'). The introduction of the human contingent is handled about as well as any of the TV series, and there's even a tiny bit of resentment in at least one of the Autobots about being saddled with a human to babysit.

But, naturally, the characters grow on each other and they become a stronger team, human and Autobot alike, as the series progresses. There's an FBI liason trying to keep on top of events, and even a group of humans who are developing their own high-tech assault force (for reasons as yet unrevealed) who are keen to harvest a Cybertronian robot, and don't much care which side it comes from.

It draws on mythology from many aspects of the TransFormers history (largely the original G1 stuff and the more recent G1 retcons), and has a surprisingly thorough reasoning for the appearance of Dark Energon on Earth, as well its connection to Cybertron and the history and mythology of the autonomous robotic lifeforms which populated the planet. There's even a brief telling of the history between Optimus Prime and Megatron, and how they were once friends back on Cybertron.

Perhaps my favourite part of the show is the brilliantly sinister reimagining of Soundwave. Rather than just ape any of his previous incarnations, including the iconic G1 version, Prime delivers a faceless, virtually silent Soundwave who seems only to communicate by replaying his recordings (apart from one occasion where he laughs, sounding very much like the G1 version). It's implied that he has all the Decepticons under close permanent surveillance and, in one brief fight with 'Airachnid' (possibly the worst TransFormers name ever) that he has his G1 counterpart's mind-reading skill - he blocks her every move easily, even though it's been shown that Airachnid probably has the fastest reflexes of the Decepticons present.

Even Starscream gets a better deal than in other series. Sure, he's a snivelling, scheming coward, always trying to outmanoeuvre Megatron and claim leadership for himself... But, toward the end of the series, having been deserted by his leader and almost killed by one vengeful Autobot, he has an epiphany and strikes out on his own, never to be seen again in the series.

The climax to Season 1 was well-handled. Having done the inadvisable and introduced Unicron to the Prime canon, he is... returned to stasis rather than outright destroyed (which would have had terrible repercussions for life on Earth), but Optimus Prime's heroism leaves him at Megatron's mercy... and we are left with the words "To Be Continued..."

The only thing I really don't like about the series is the movie rip-off Bumblebee. Can't we get past this 'speech impediment' mechanic, and have a Bumblebee with a voice? Really, what purpose does it serve when precious moments have to be spent explaining what his R2-D2 blips and buzzes actually mean?

So, ultimately, while these YouTubers are being rather disingenuous (or naive, or just plain stupid) uploading the series to the Internet, they've done Hasbro and The Discovery Channel one small service - not only will I be picking up some of the toys, but I'll be buying the series on DVD as soon as it's available in the UK.

Score one for common sense.

In other news, I went to the London Expo with my old mate Paul last weekend, and had a rather more successful day than I'd expected, considering Hasbro's lousy UK release schedule for toys. I picked up DotM Deluxe Thundercracker (PLEASE, Hasbro, release Skywarp as well! Just for once, make it easy for us obsessive complusives to get all three Seekers!) and Classics/Universe/Generations Warpath and Wheeljack, the complete series of Witch Hunter Robin (not as exciting as I'd hoped, thusfar), a Shunya Yamashita artbook (One Voice - the easiest to come by), the Alien Vault (a rather more complete view behind the scenes than was offered by the Giger's Alien book), a couple more Genki Gear t-shirts, a FoxHound t-shirt, some ink pens and a Catbus hat. I almost picked up Human Alliance Leadfoot, but that would have completely wiped out the money I'd brought.

Aside from the retail aspect, the show was pretty good fun. Paul was keen to sit in on the Sanctuary and Torchwood panels. Neither offered much, but both had their entertaining moments. The former launched into a synopsis for a hypothetical episode where Tesla starts to glitter like a Meyer vampire (I sincerely hope they really make that episode, as it sounded hilarious), the latter was dominated by Kai Owen's loud antics, but featured the interesting snippet that the cast were not aware that Starz have apparently announced that they don't intend to make any more Torchwood, at least according to the member of the audience who posed the question about their plans for the future...

Early in the day, while still wandering about the show, I accepted a massage from one of the on-site team of masseurs. Paul disappeared almost immediately, which was quite uncanny, but also led to the masseur telling me that a lot of the attendees had declined the offer (a ten minute massage, for which you would pay 'whatever you think it's worth', half of which would go to charity) because they "don't like to be touched". I opined that they were probably at the wrong event, considering how crowded the place was, even on a Sunday.

Weirdly, the MCM Expo folks had set up one hall as 'Memorabilia London', acting as if this was the show's triumphal return to the capital. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Considering early entry to Memorabilia was an additional £16 ticket, I suspect anyone who actually paid for entry to that would have felt utterly cheated... until 1pm, when doors between Memorabilia and the London Expo were opened. It looked more like Collectormania, in that there were far more 'celebrities' lining the walls, and precious little else... Though I did buy a couple of my TransFormers in that hall.

This past week, I've been incredibly lazy... but it's dawned on me that I basically need to do more to keep myself occupied. Larking about on the internet, watching TV or DVDs and playing videogames doesn't get me better versed in the intricacies of InDesign, or any closer to finishing off the many pictures or writing projects I have stuck in my head... Hopefully, I'll be able to drag myself out of the doldrums this coming week...

On the upside, I did manage to pick up a Christmas present for my niece...

About Some Things Ending

Last week, I suggested that I might not be able to get a full 100% score for item collection in Metroid: Other M. I should have had more faith in the game's designers. The area that was blocked off in the main routes is the area you escape through once the absolute final boss is defeated.

I defeated the final, final boss - Super Missiles are the key - trotted off to the lift, got stuck, Power Bombed my way out, dropped down...

...rolled into the vent shaft wrapped around the lift shaft to pick up that final missile tank...

...Got into the control booth in the operations room, shared an intimate moment between Samus and Adam's Helmet (steady on! No double-entendre intended!), then escaped the Bottle Ship in about 3 minutes.

I absolutely loved Metroid: Other M. While certain parts were utterly frustrating until I learned the key technique for defeating certain creatures, the story was engaging and the format of the game was clever, and managed to never put me off entirely, no matter how annoying certain parts got.

As for Samus, her characterisation was anything but weak. Showing her to be a realistic character, with fears, a traumatic past and emotional attachments (confused as they were - was Adam just a father figure?) brought her to life in a way that the old NES/SNES games, and even the Prime trilogy, never could.

Now if only Konami would make a Castlevania game in a similar style, rather than going all-out 3D...

And then, The Fades.

Troubled as I was by the plot holes (for example, Fades cannot touch, or be touched by, the living, and yet Jon was somehow able to become something more than a ghost when his former wife's blood dripped onto him/into his mouth?) they never harmed my enjoyment of the show, because the whole rose far above the sum of its parts. I should have been hokey, but it wasn't. Some of the performances seemed stiff or weak or wooden, and yet the characters stood up well, and were believable. At the centre of the story was the brilliantly geeky friendship between Mac and Paul - closer siblings than Paul and his biological sister.

One point (of many) that I found particularly vague in the final episode was about Sarah's brief return to husband Mark. It was hinted that she had an affair with Neil and, yes, she returned to her husband as a flesh-hungry Reborn... but how did they go from spending the night together, to Mark running off with Vicky, who he barely knows? I half expected to see her mopping up some black saliva just before they drove off...

We still don't know much about The Angelics (except that they possibly don't quite live up to their title), or what the deal is with Paul's resurrection and his wings, but the end of episode six was suitably ominous, and seems to indicate more to come in the future... I, for one, will be watching.

Unexpectedly Weird

Perhaps it's not surprising that, given nearly a full week of work in an actual office, my subconscious thoughts return to my old job, particularly given that we are edging ever closer to the one year anniversary of my redundancy in December.

The length, depth and detail of the dream were surprising, however. Normally, I find dreams swim from subject to subject, setting to setting, blurring into each other like switching TV channels with a fader switch. Not so, this time.

It was almost like being back in the office (though the layout was different, so not exactly the same office) on a press day that was also another 'final farewell' to me and my former boss. We'd been called back (again) to pull their fat out of a particularly fervid fire, but there was a large presentation screen in one area of the office, upon which was scrolling (amongst other things) the text of my last farewell message to the company.

The order of events is a bit messy in my head right now – it was a dream, after all – but things that happened included:

• Me adding a final note of absolute finality to my farewell message (telling those who remained that I wouldn't miss “you fuckers”) which drew a few gasps but mainly laughs.
• Me telling everyone what a useless, lazy tosser one of the Editorial Designers was while he was sitting only a few feet away, and well within earshot. Yes, it was deliberate.
• A long and detailed argument about 'how to be an effective boss' between my former boss and the woman who was in charge of the company when we departed, which started when the latter offered some nebulous words of encouragement at the sight of the former sagging against a cupboard because of some new disaster wrought by the salespeople.

This last point was where it got incredibly complicated. My former boss responded along the lines of “don't you dare 'come on' me... one of the reasons I'm back here again is because you're virtually never in the fucking office.”
“I've got a lot of important meetings to go to,” was the other's cheerily insincere retort.

My former boss argued with great erudition that it was hardly setting a good example for the new staff that the person in overall charge of all their publications was never around, and the other simply prevaricated.

It was just so real, I tell you...

Creepy

Every so often, when travelling around this fair city of London, you'll happen upon something so outstandingly creepy that you think you've stumbled into some bizarre 'reality' TV thing, or that someone is playing a very elaborate practical joke on the whole world.

For example, picture a man in his 30s. He has shoulder-length, curly ginger hair, a well-groomed moustache and a sliver of a beard gracing his chin. His fashion sense hovers dangerously close to Doctor Who. He's legally blind, and carries a white stick, but seems to rarely need it ('legally blind' is far from being truly blind). He wears a monocular on a cord around his neck.

Place this man on a crowded train - standing, quite deliberately, and declining any seat offered up by other passengers - then imagine him repeatedly singing the same couple of lines and the chorus of a certain song by The Beatles ('Hey Bulldog', if you want the specifics).

Observe as, whenever a blonde appears in his field of vision, the monocular is raised to one eye, so he can check her out properly.

Really?

Did I really see that today?

I'm sorry, but I did.

And I cannot unsee it.

And just to make it worse, when one (female) passenger offered him a seat before taking it herself, he then leaned over to ask her to do 'one small thing' for him: confirm which station the train was currently in. He named the station, you understand, she merely said "yes".

Creepy? I think so.

I mean, let's face it, there are sighted people who cannot tell what station they're in... One would expect a blind person to be counting them off from memory. It's a function. It helps them live as normal a life as they can hope for.

He didn't lift the monocular for her, though. She was a brunette.

In other news, another short term, holiday-cover job came to a close today - same place as last time - and was actually heaps of fun. There really isn't enough work involved in the first three days to warrant the attention of a full-timer. Were it not for some minimal design work, some troubleshooting and the necessity to exercise my inner fascist by badgering a problem client for a sign-off, I'd have been quite thoroughly bored.

Today, I had to chase in advertisements for next week's issue, and could have called that done by about 10.30-11am. Of course, some of the copy arrived, so I was able to check and process it. There were other tasks that popped up unexpectedly during the day, best described as 'miscellaneous', and it was interesting to note that people expected me to know how to do certain 'Thursday' tasks, despite the fact that I'd only worked there once before, and never on a Thursday.

Then again, it tends to be the case that people assume I know how to do everything because I do what I do know so well.

Ah, the tribulations of being awesome.

Further to the previous entry, about Metroid: Other M... it turns out I may not be able to get a 100% rating, because I've missed a missile tank in the main sector. It's somewhere in the lift shaft that gets you to the main, inter-sector lift shaft... a room that is basically semi-circular in plan view, and the missile tank appears to be behind the lift shaft, an area which is inaccessible. So it's either above or below, and I see no way of accessing either... Troublesome...

OK, I cheated...

...and looked up the very end of New Game Plus in Metroid: Other M. The 'something irreplaceable' is Adam Malkovich's helmet, left behind in all the action.

I'm very glad I did look it up because, as well as revealing how to get some of the trickier items, it showed me a quicker way of defeating the 'Power Bomb Doors' (which aren't doors!), and what awaits me if I actually intend to go for 100% completion.

Already, I have 100% in two of the five game areas, and an astonishingly low 33% in the last area to open up in the main game, so I've got an awful lot of catching up to do.

Actually getting to the very end may not be entirely necessary, so I'm not going to rush it. Just defeating the Metroid Queen and MB opens up Gallery Mode and Theatre Mode, the latter offering all the pre-rendered movie sequences in proper DVD scene menu style - you can 'Play All' and see 'Metroid: Other M, The Movie' (cleverly filling in the bits between movies with snippets of recorded gameplay), or dip in and choose the specific scenes (of which there are many). Clearly, completing the Plus game completes the movie with the after-credits extras, and each Power Bomb Door defeated seems to open up more artwork in Gallery Mode (or perhaps that's just filled out by increasing your percentage in area).

Still, much fun... I'm not really looking forward to 'the gauntlet' that serves as a run-up to the Plus game's final (for reals this time!) boss, or the timed escape (one of my most loathed gameplay features), but I think I should be able to do it...

Probably not this coming week, of course, but hopefully sometime soon.

New Game Plus

And so we have another momentous occasion this weekend. No, nothing to do with having a week's work in an office next week. Nothing to do with real life at all, in fact.

Today, I completed Metroid: Other M.

And, when I say 'completed', I mean the first run. Once the credits have rolled through, you're launched straight back into 'New Game Plus', in which you return to the Bottle Ship with all the weapons you gained during the first run, including the Power Bombs (received unannounced during the battle with the Metroid Queen) for a whole new - probably shorter - mission.

The battle with the game's (sorta) final boss is probably the most annoying of the lot and, frankly, I found most of the boss battles annoying as there's no real hint system, and the method for taking each one down is unique to that creature. Sure, there's much usage of Charge Shots for each one, but the use of bombs, missiles or super missles is never really explained beforehand and, for players like me, that means an awful lot of death and frustration, followed by a quick look at a walkthrough or a Let's Play to explain the correct method.

And, even then, my technique sucks. The Metroid Queen shoots out first one Metroid, then two, then three... and, unless you take out each wave quickly, you end up surrounded by six of the little bastards, each of whom can suddenly divebomb you and sap huge amounts of health before you can transform into Morph Ball mode and bomb them into letting you go.

But, still, the end of the first run is suitably epic (read: a long movie sequence), with a little bit of player-controlled action (read: an annoying first-person targetting sequence with no clear goal) in the middle.

I know there was a lot of controversy about Samus' first speaking role in a Metroid game, but I'm one of the supporters. There was a video, made by a fan, explaining how Other M does not, in fact, ruin the character of Samus because she was never 'stoic', she just didn't have any dialogue. While I would opine that the voice acting could have been... how I can put this?.. a little less narcoleptic, the character they created for Samus was very human and believable. The punk kid who felt like she had something to prove because she was the only girl in her team, and aliens killed her parents, grows to become a lone bounty-hunter after a disagreement with her CO/father figure. Meeting up with him on this mission again reminds her of everything they shared - good and bad. It's OK for this 'all-powerful space hero' to show some self-doubt, let alone outright fear in the face of the creature who killed her family... who wouldn't?

The title always puzzled me and, thankfully, it's explained very well at the end, but skip this paragraph if you're spoiler-averse: The game's intro presents a new perspective on the climactic battle between Samus and Mother Brain from one of the SNES Metroid games, and 'MB' becomes something of a recurring motif thereafter. The person in charge of the research on the Bottle Ship is Madeline Bergman, she creates and artificial intelligence to mimmic Mother Brain's telepathic control of the Metroids. This AI is called 'MB', and is eventually installed into an android, which takes the name 'Melissa Bergman'... hence becoming the 'other M' Bergman.

The final movie, before the credits rolled, almost made me shed a tear or two, with Samus giving a deliberately uncharacteristic thumbs-up "in case Adam was watching", followed by the appearance of a silhouette of her traditional thumbs-down, courtesy of former team-mate Anthony, made me think - just for a moment - that Adam Malkovich had somehow survived.

Then again, when 'New Game Plus' begins, Samus informs us that she's headed back to the Bottle Ship to rescue "something that can't be replaced"... And until I complete New Game Plus, I won't know what that is unless I watch a Let's Play of that...

So, anyway... that means I've now completed:

Another Code: R

Western Heroes (debatable - I still think it just crashed)

Muramasa: Demon Blade (Kisuke's story #1)

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (first run, Lost Love ending)

Metroid: Other M (first run)

Which is pretty respectable... and also suggests that games have become easier over the years... I know the first two are actually aimed at kids (hell, the first even comes across like a reading course), and I played Muramasa in 'easy mode' (if there truly is such a thing in that game) but, bar one particularly challenging part, the Wii Silent Hill game is fairly easy to complete, though getting 100% would be tricky, and Other M, as previously mentioned, has some exceptionally tricky bosses which suddenly become quite easy when you know how to defeat them. Not completely easy... but easy enough...

If I remember correctly, all of those games except Western Heroes have a 'New Game Plus'... Muramasa has a completely different story, and Shattered Memories has 3 different 'standard' endings, but completing the game once unlocks the 'UFO' ending. It's always nice when there's a reason to return to a game, rather than just shelve it or trade it in.

In other news, I'm becoming typically terrified about my week of temping... even though I've worked there once before. I know it'll be fine once I get there, but I'm becoming a bundle of nerves in the lead-up.

Possibly a symptom of this was the nightmare I had last night, which played out like a Halloween sequel. Police were investigating a murder (or murders) and determined that the culprit was none other than Michael Myers... but they hadn't reckoned on the fact that he was living in the building they were using as the headquarters for their investigation... so, in typical fashion, the police officers were systematically (and brutally) murdered themselves. Don't remember too many other details... but it woke me up at around 6.30... though I had little trouble getting back to sleep afterward.