Bendanarama

The art of the Short Story.

2011-10-28T21:19:00.000+01:00

I've been trying to figure short stories out for a long time. I've got a few volumes of short fantasy and horror stories knocking around my flat, and I've spent enough time reading them to have tried my hand at writing them.

But I also have my fair share of issues with short stories. The problem I've always had with a lot of short stories I've read is that they seem to forget they're actually a story. My issues with Booker Prize winners nonewithstanding, that style of writing doesn't fit the short story for. At the end of the day, a booker prize winner has a whole novel to tell their touching tale of a young Asian man scarping a living working as a prostitute on the back streets of Tamworth whilst simultaneously trying to act as the surrogate mother to a Panda cub they stole from the zoo.

Feel free to steal that one, by the way. It's as good as most of the pompous crap that booker prize winners come up with.

But when people try to fit those Oh-So-Clever ideas into a short story, then they end up being dull and disinteresting. Maybe thats the goal. Maybe they like subverting the genre. Maybe they lie pissing me, personally, off. A lot of short stories are like that, 'touching' tales of hardship, usually about people who have been touched. Either way, I read enough of that in University to know I don't like it.

So, horror and fantasy. They're the two Genres I primarily read short stories in, but the problem is that a lot of the time, especially in the horror genre, you seem to get writers who are more interested in showing how cleverly they can write than in telling their - usually quite interesting - tale.

So I've been thinking of some of the key points that I feel are useful in the construction of a short story. To come up with these, I revisited some old friends in the form of The Two Steves: Stephen King and Stephen Donaldson. This is just personal opinion, but I believe these two writers to be masters of the short story form in Horror and Fantasy respectively. I'll be making some references to their work in this little rant, and if you're interested, I suggest you seek them out, they're all good stories.

So, without further ado, here's Bendanarama's guide to the short story:

1) Length.

This may seem like a blindingly obvious point to make, but short stories need to be, well, short. AS far as I'm concerned (and this is something I disagree with Donaldson on) 50,000 words is way too much for a short story. 50,000 is well into Novella territory and, given the existence of "Tuesdays with Morrie" a borderline novel in itself. In my opinion, a short story is potentially anywhere from 1000 words to 25-30,000. That looks like a lot, but is actually quite a small amount of space, which leads me onto:

2) The Premise.

Again, it seems obvious, but it's very difficult to tell an epic tale of the wars of men in a short story. Pick a relatively simple premise, something that allows you to tell a story, but forces you to wrap it up in a short timeframe. In Stephen King's "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" collection, almost all the premises are simple: A couple comes to stay in an out of the way town, a finger begins to poke out of a drain, a vampire with a pilots license. All simple premises that give room to stretch the imagination.

3) The Characters.

You're characters will need to be clearly defined from the start. You don't have a hell of a lot of space to play with their backgrounds and motivations, so give us someone we can associate and recognise clearly. Don't be afraid to use the odd cliche here and there. Cliche's are what they are for a reason, and can be used just as effectively to your advantage as to your detriment: think cowboy movie: The Town Sheriff, The Unnamed Drifter, The Local Businessman. All recognisable archetypes of the Genre, all of which allow you to stretch them as characters in a short amount of space. Give your reader something to latch onto, and they'll repay you by paying attention to what you're writing. In Donaldson's story "Penance" the Main character is a remorseful vampire. You're damn right it's a cliche, but it's one played to brilliant effect in a fantasy environment.

4) Keep it Simple, Stupid.

Stop trying to impress people with your flowerly language. Seriously, this is one of my big bugbears - you've got a limited amount of space - use it to tell your story in a manner that won't have your reader going "eh?" rather than trying to make the English language perform somersaults for your own self-gratification.

So yeah, I hope this little rant helps some poor person who chooses to stumble upon this blog after a random google search. It happens. In the meantime, I'll be writing my "Cowboys vs Werewolves" short story. Lets see how that works out.

Falling out of the story.

2011-09-27T18:50:00.004+01:00

So. Writing. That thing I'm meant to be doing. Yeah.

I'm not going to deny it, I'm fairly inconsistent when it comes to writing to targets. I've struggled with Time and Tide over the last few months, and now that the autumn months are coming round, I'm finding it a real struggle to focus on the story I'm trying to tell.

Primarily, this is because I have a fairly serious aversion to planning my story out. I tend to stick with a looser guideline - I know whats going to happen in the beginning, I know what the characters are going to be like, and I have a pretty solid idea of how they're all going to end up. My problem is whats colloquially known as the "bit in the middle." You know. The stuff that fills up all the pages.

I love writing. I really do. It's one of my favourite things to do. But I've written six chapters of Time and Tide now and I've hit on the problem that hits me with all my writing at some point: It's started becoming a chore. I sit down, look at it, and go "I can't be arsed right now." I love the story and I love the characters, but at the end of theday, I'm not in the mood.

So, what to do instead? I could pull my usual nonsense by slacking off and playing video games. I could do what I'm currently doing and carry on trolling people on Omegle's spy mode.

Or I coulc get off my ass and write something. Last year for NaNoWriMo, I wrote a motorsport story. I've been meaning to do something more with those characters. What better time than now?

Incidentally, the whole Omegle thing? This is the best response so far:

---

You're now watching two strangers discuss your question!
Question to discuss:
Last night, I creapt into your house and spat, gently, in your ear. How do you feel about this?

Stranger 1: I actually enjoyed that. I thought it was the loveliest of dreams.

Stranger 1: Now I know it was real.

Stranger 2: o.o

Stranger 1: Woah! wait, who are you?

Stranger 1: I thought it was this other man who had come to me, now there is this stranger talking to me?

Stranger 1: What is this?

Stranger 1: How could you do this to me??

Stranger 2: Imma woman ...

Stranger 1: Are you the one who spit in my ear?

Stranger 2: no

Stranger 1: Did this being who is watching us come to you as well?

Stranger 1: He must have, if he sent us both here...

Stranger 2: nope

Stranger 1: We were chosen for something.

Stranger 1: no?

Stranger 1: hmmm...

Stranger 1: interesting.

Stranger 2: well i dunno i was asleep

Stranger 1: Did you wake up here?

Stranger 2: ive been out all day ? its like 7:25pm were i am

Stranger 1: YOU'RE SO BORING! WHY DONT YOU JUST PLAY ALONG??

Stranger 1 has disconnected

Monday Mumblings: God is in the Mask.

2011-08-22T21:19:00.005+01:00

So, here I sit, cup of tea in hand, trying to work on my Novel, and failing dismally. I don't know why, because I have a lot of enthusiasm for this project, but I seem to have reached, at this point of the sixth chapter, what can be referred to as "The fiddly bit."

See, the problem is, my characters aren't omniscient. Well, most of them aren't. There's one exception, but I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. But the point is that most of my characters aren't all knowing, so at some point, they have to figure out how to get to each other. This is difficult. Bex describes the story as being a bit of a King Arthur fanfiction, and theres a certain element of truth to that, but there are a lot of places I have to take the characters before I pack them in the back of their Skoda and trot them off down to King Arthur country.

So instead, I'm having to rely on my witty dialogue and the sneaky use of Deus Ex Machina. I've always been kind of fascinated by the Sutton Hoo Mask, so given that I'm having my villain and his anti-heroish compadre are currently breaking into the British museum, I couldn't think of a better historical artifact to send them on their merry little treasure hunt. I'm also sort of playing assassins creed Brotherhood multiplayer, but I'm not really paying attention so it isn't going well.

Blogging, writing a novel, and playing video games all at the same time. Who says blokes can't multitask?

This isn't the game I remember.

2011-08-16T19:21:00.002+01:00

I came to a horrifying conclusion recently. It hit me quite hard, and made me just a little depressed. I came to the devastating realisation that my beloved Gillingham Football Club will never play in the Premier League.

Now, I'm pretty sure that will come as a shock to precisely no-one, but what got me the most is that even if we had the players, ground, infrastructure, sponsors, training, management and chairman to get to the premiership, theres no way in hell that Gillingham FC can afford to compete in the premier league.

What brought it home was a line in Shortlist Magazine from Robbie Savage. He was talking about Fernando Torres' move to Chelsea and said "He looks more like a Fifteen Million pound player than a Fifty-Million pound player."

And I thought to myself "Holy hell, what has the world come to when being said you're worth fifteen million quid is meant to be a derogatory statement."

I'm pretty sure the Gills entire squad isn't valued at fifty million pounds. Hell, I'm not even sure they're valued at fifteen million pounds. Fifteen million quid goes a very long way in the third division.

And I'm still not entirely sure when football started becoming more about the money than it was about the game. Manchester City is currently having it's sponsors investigated by UEFA - the European Regulators - to see if theres any financial misconduct. In 1999, Gillingham lost to Manchester City in the division 2 playoff finals. I still find that slightly surreal given that they're now the richest club in the league.

It's like the premier league exists in another plane of existence. One where theres infinite money, and no-one bats an eyelid at players earning £200,000 a week. And everyone is asking the question "When will this bubble pop?"

A lot of the people I work with tell me that this money needs to be paid to keep the league competitive and attract talent. But I say that the world of football needs a wage cap - Let the talent come for the game, rather than the money. Let players play for the love of their club, not the size of their wallet.

Cesc Fabregas left Arsenal this week to play for Barcelona. When you read what he was saying, it was clear that he went to Barca for love of his hometown club. Back in the premier league, Wayne Rooney walked out on Everton, his hometown club, to take the big paycheck at Manchester United. Sadly, there are more players acting like Rooney than acting like Fabregas, and whilst the clubs bank balances swell and the players get bigger cars and bigger paychecks, I sit there watching the results on Saturday, knowing that my club will never be top of the top.

Because we can't afford it.

I find myself in a very odd position.

2011-07-27T19:28:00.005+01:00

We all know how Internet trawling goes. You start on one page, you click on a random link, and you end up going to strange and weird places of the Internet that you never expected to. No, this isn't a porn rant. Get your mind out of the gutter.

This is the strange tale of how I found myself in the incredibly strange position of defending Paris Hilton. Still not a porn rant.

So, this morning, I clicked on a random link from F1 Fanatic, and a couple of clicks later, I ended up on this video:

Okay, I'm not the biggest fan of Motorbike Racing, and I can't stand Paris Hilton, and on that basis I was fairly indifferent to the clip, although I thought she sounded very supportive of the team she's backing - Blusen's by Paris Hilton Racing (Catchy) - and very supportive of the 16 year old 125cc racers she's helping race on the MotoGP circuit.

Then I made a critical error.

I looked at the Comments.

Dear. Sweet. God.

"wtf,why she was there? for sex or something?"

"okay....stick making porn videos...."

"What a d**k! I bet she only wants a bike because its something else big and throbbing she can have between her legs!"

"would she give me a blow if i let her drive my bike?!"

"shouldn't this c**t be in the kitchen making us all a sandwhich? lol"

I'd really love to say I cherrypicked the comments here. to an extent I did. But if you don't believe me, go and look at the comments on that video yourself. It is genuinely disgusting. As I've said, I'm not a fan of Paris Hilton, but no-one deserves to be spoken about in this method. I was raised to not talk about people like this, and I'm willing to bet most of those commenters were as well.

A lot of the resentment on there seems to derive from the fact that the commenters seem to believe that she has "no right" or "doesn't belong" on the video from the Grid.

Heres the moment when I pick a fight, because I hate to break it to you, but she has a hell of a lot more right to be there than most of you keyboard warriors out there. I do hope that some MotoGP fans end up reading that and pour hatred out at me.

Your hate tastes like candy. It feeds me.

But the fact is that Paris Hilton is probably pouring a not insubstantial amount of money into supporting two young 125cc riders as they go to different races worldwide. No-one objects to Vijay Mallya, Tony Fernandes or Richard Branson being interviewed on the F1 grid, so why does Paris Hilton, who is essentially a team owner, deserve this abuse. Is it because they command more respect, more prestige?

Or is it because they aren't a 30 year old blonde heiress who once appeared in a porn video.

It's very easy to go for target like that, isn't it? Very big of all of you.

That "I am the Doctor" Moment.

2011-07-13T20:26:00.003+01:00

One of my things when I'm writing is that I write to music. I'm pretty sure most people who write do the same - certainly most people I know do. But one of the things I do is I tend to associate music with certain parts of my writing.

Those three sentences were just background, by the way, they have nothing to do with the meat of this blog entry.

Okay, Im sure you glanced at the title of this blog and went "What the hell is he talking about?" Well, I'm a Doctor Who fan, and since the Regeneration into the Eleventh Doctor, the fine folks at the BBC have used a certain musical refrain to indicate moments where the Doctor is about to be exceptionally awesome. This is that piece of music:

Its a live version, so there is the occasional giggle from the audience, but you get the idea. Now, what we have there is a musical cue. If you watch a program long enough, you begin to associate these cues with pieces of action. Another example is the Indiana Jones theme tune. Throughout the movies, when the music begins to kick in, you know that it's about to become a "Indy Kicks Ass" scene.

Now, the Audio Cue of "I am the Doctor" is a bit different, primarily because of the difference between Indiana Jones and The Doctor as characters. Indiana Jones is an action hero, whereas The Doctor is, essentially, a none-violent character. "I am The Doctor" is not an action Cue, but it is a quintessentially triumphant piece of music. Of course, an Audio Cue is nothing without context, so here's a scene from Matt Smith's first episode that illustrates exactly how the audio Cue of the initial strings riff on this track works:

Okay, so now we're all briefed up on the concept of the Audio Cue, what does that have to do with the way I'm trying to write my Novel?

Well, that kind of Crescendo moment is something that I've been looking to try and develop in my own work, and I've been looking for examples in other places of how it works. Now, some of these won't work exceptionally well out of context, so you're going to have to trust me on them. I'll try and explain them as best I can.

The first example, I've got, is one that, somewhat fortuitously, I came across today. I'm pretty sure that most people who've read a book... well, who've read a book will have heard of The Hound Of The Baskervilles. If you haven't, you're physically a disgrace to humanity.

But, having heard of the book isn't necessarily equivalent to having read it, so to give you the background to this section, and brief summary of the plot so far: Sir Charles Baskerville has died in suspicious circumstances, and Sherlock Holmes has been commissioned by his Heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, to investigate both the circumstances of Sir Charles' demise and the mysterious warnings that have been sent to attempt to discourage Sir Henry from taking up residence at Baskerville Hall. The Mystery deepens when the Baskerville Family legend of a demonic hellound stalking the family seems to be involved, with the footprint of a Large Dog having been found near Sir Charles' body. Holmes, for various reasons, elects to remain in London for the first part of the story, and sends his Erstwhile companion, Doctor Watson, to Devonshire with Sir Henry. To complicate things further, a notorious murderer has escaped onto the moors, and is involved with members of Sir Henry's household staff. While he and sir Henry chasing down Selden, the escaped convict, Watson spots a figure highlighted against the moon watching them. During his own investigations the next day, Watson has the trail to this second figure's hideout pointed out to him by a local busybody. Following the scent to a group of Neolithic houses, Watson finds a note from the Boy who has been carrying supplies to this mysterious figure...

"Dr. Watson has gone to Coombe Tracey."

For a minute I stood there with the paper in my hands thinking out the meaning of this curt message. It was I, then, and not Sir Henry, who was being dogged by this secret man. He had not followed me himself, but he had set an agent—the boy, perhaps—upon my track, and this was his report. Possibly I had taken no step since I had been upon the moor which had not been observed and reported. Always there was this feeling of an unseen force, a fine net drawn round us with infinite skill and delicacy, holding us so lightly that it was only at some supreme moment that one realized that one was indeed entangled in its meshes.

If there was one report there might be others, so I looked round the hut in search of them. There was no trace, however, of anything of the kind, nor could I discover any sign which might indicate the character or intentions of the man who lived in this singular place, save that he must be of Spartan habits and cared little for the comforts of life. When I thought of the heavy rains and looked at the gaping roof I understood how strong and immutable must be the purpose which had kept him in that inhospitable abode. Was he our malignant enemy, or was he by chance our guardian angel? I swore that I would not leave the hut until I knew.

Outside the sun was sinking low and the west was blazing with scarlet and gold. Its reflection was shot back in ruddy patches by the distant pools which lay amid the great Grimpen Mire. There were the two towers of Baskerville Hall, and there a distant blur of smoke which marked the village of Grimpen. Between the two, behind the hill, was the house of the Stapletons. All was sweet and mellow and peaceful in the golden evening light, and yet as I looked at them my soul shared none of the peace of Nature but quivered at the vagueness and the terror of that interview which every instant was bringing nearer. With tingling nerves but a fixed purpose, I sat in the dark recess of the hut and waited with sombre patience for the coming of its tenant.

And then at last I heard him. Far away came the sharp clink of a boot striking upon a stone. Then another and yet another, coming nearer and nearer. I shrank back into the darkest corner and cocked the pistol in my pocket, determined not to discover myself until I had an opportunity of seeing something of the stranger. There was a long pause which showed that he had stopped. Then once more the footsteps approached and a shadow fell across the opening of the hut.

"It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson," said a well-known voice. "I really think that you will be more comfortable outside than in."

Okay, so the trick when reading that excerpt is to imagine the music coming in at the line "Then once more the footsteps approached and a shadow fell across the opening of the hut." The whole trick of this section, which Conan-Doyle plays magnificently, is that we are as blind to the identity of the stranger as Watson is, but from the moment he speaks, we realise that it is Holmes and that the day is saved, because the Hero has arrived on the scene. We know, from the moment Sherlock Holmes appears, that the endgame is upon us, and everything will be alright.

However, this moment of Triumph and sudden security is not the only way a "I Am The Doctor" moment can be used. Another example is this recent comic from Sluggy Freelance. I apologise for linking to the comic and not putting the image on here for convenience, but I refuse to steal Bandwidth from one of the most popular webcomics on the net.

I'm also not going to explain too much of the backstory here, because it is ENORMOUSLY complicated. Medical Nanobots are involved, as are alternative dimensions. To fully explain everything would far too long, but the brief notes version is that Riff - the guy in the trenchcoat - has been living in an alternate dimension for two years, and his friend Zoe - the girl at the end of the strip - was transported there with him. due to various reasons, Zoe's mind was wiped, leaving her with no memories or any kind of function; not quite vegetative, but somewhere in between.

Now, heres where the other side of the "IATD" moment comes in. This is a slightly different concept where the hero gambles everything - life, sanity, health and wealth - to achieve one single goal: in this case, restoring Zoe to her original buoyant state. These plots and gambles are, by necessity, highly convoluted and complicated, as the explanation given by Riff in the comic shows. With comic strips, you have to imagine the time delay between frames to give yourself the sort of cinematic flow. The place for the Audio Cue to kick in in that scenario is slightly different - rather than a buildup to the reveal, its the buildup to the Victory, the true triumphant moment, where the gamble is shown to have paid off - when Zoe reappears as herself, rather than in her vegetative state.

These are just two examples, but when I was reading both, I was playing the piece of music in my head as I read them. Now, it's easy to spot this kind of moment on TV or film, but writing them in prose of in a comic the way Conan-Doyle and Pete Abrams did in these examples, is to me one of the best - and most difficult parts of trying to write a story, and something I aspire to be able to do. If I ever read back over what I've written and get the little buzz of anticipation burst that piece of music gives me, I know I'll have done good.

Kids these Days.

2011-07-06T19:29:00.005+01:00

Okay, I'm a gamer, and I've been known, on occasion to talk about motorsport on this blog. So naturally, being both a gamer and a Motorsport fan, I was pretty happy to see news of F1 2011 appearing in the gaming media, more specifically, this Developer Diary:

I want the steering wheel Ant Davidson uses in that video SO much.

Now, I first came across that video on a gaming site. As you tend to with Video Game news. What I then did was make the mistake of looking at the comments. Most of it, to be fair, was the usual mix of vitriolic hatred and enthusiastic responses. The one that caught my eye, though was a comment related to the footage from about the 1:45 minute mark of the video, at the VIP developer event.

As you may notice if you look at that video, a lot of the people trying the game out are rather young, which prompted some enlightened soul in the comments to ask:

"That's stupid, what the F**k do kids know about car handling?"

I have, of course, corrected the spelling and grammar.

Now, at first glance, the commenter has a point. What does a young person know about the intricacies of car handling and physics? What could a young teenager know about Racing a car? What could a child know about competitive motorsport and how a car handles under pressure?

What could this 15 year old girl:

(Picture Courtesy: BBC)

know about car handling and physics? And what does this nine year old child:

(Picture courtesy: Youtube)

...Know about how a racing car handles? Look at the pair of them? What could they possibly know about racing car Handling that some gamer commenting on a website doesn't? Everyone knows kids don't know anything!

Tell me, gentle reader, how good are you at spotting incredibly loaded questions?

That first picture? The fifteen year old? Her name is Sarah Moore. In 2009, on Live British Television, she won the Ginetta Juniors championship, one of the best Junior GT racing categories in the country. She was the first female champion in it's then five-year history. She won five races and had ten podium finishes in the 20 race season. Now aged 17 and racing in the Intersteps series, Her ambition is to compete in the Le Mans 24 Hours. She also has her sights set on being the first British Female F1 driver.

Just to illustrate that this series isn't just kids playing around, here's some footage from the 2008 season, as Ginetta Junior footage is disappointingly difficult to find:

Oh, and I bet you're wondering about the young nine year old boy in that photo. Well, that picture was taken in 1989. I cropped it from this footage:

Twenty years later, that nine year old boy did this:

Yeah. Thats Jenson Button. The 2009 F1 world Champion.

So whats the point of this blog entry? The point is that Racing drivers don't just drop into the seat at the age of 25 and start winning races. The point is that Motorsport, like everything else in life, is a craft that needs to be learned.

The point is that some Gamer posting a comment on a website doesn't know more than that 15 year old girl and eight year old boy. They have probably forgotten more about car handling and physics than you will ever know. Sarah Moore is a veteran champion racing driver at the age of 17. Jenson Button has been racing for over 20 years, and is only 31 years old.

So, "What the f**k do kids know about car handling and physics?"

The answer? In the case of some of them, A hell of a lot more than you.

The wheel deal...lol

2011-06-21T20:29:00.005+01:00

About six months ago, I picked up a Microcon MC2 Steering wheel from Argos, because - as you may have noticed - I am a fan of motorsport, and that extends to the videogame world as well. So, y'know, after having half a year to get used to the nuances of my favourite gaming accessory, I've decided to give a bit of a product review on how its turned out.

Now, there are quite a few people on sites like F1 Fanatic and The hardcore motorsport gaming sites insist that the only gaming wheels anyone should ever use are the likes of the £295 Logitech G27 and should only play a "proper racing simulator" like Rfactor.

Those are the same people who don't get that games like F1 2010 have to appear to a wider audience than the hardcore simulation crowd, and in fact have to work to appeal to the widest fanbase of F1 to recoup the money spent on the game in the first place.

I play games because I want to enjoy them. And that's precisely what I've been doing with the MC2. So, Thinking about it recently, I've subjected the MC2 to what I'm calling the "Five Game Test."

In order to see how best the wheel works, I've needed to use it on a variety of games. This being me, I have a pretty decent selection of racing games, so the ones I've chosen are:

Race Driver: GRID

F1 2010

Need For Speed: Shift

Sega Rally Online Arcade

Forza Motorsport 3.

Firstly though, a bit about the wheel itself. "But Ben," I hear you say "It's a steering wheel. It goes round and a car turns. what more do I need to know?"

Well, it's never quite that simple. The Minicon wheel, as the name suggests, is built to be smaller and a bit more portable than a wheel the size of a logitech - which is generally 1:1 scale with an actual car steering wheel. it works very well for this reason: the wheel fits very easilly on your lap, and comfortably as well. The base of the MC2 has a pair of fold out struts that can wrap either side of your legs, but to be honest I've never had any use of them - they push your knees together very tightly if your sitting on a chair, and the moulded base means you don't really need them to prevent the wheel slipping. The pedals that come with have an accelerator and a brake, but no clutch as there isn't a gear handle. It also has three suction cups on the base for if you want it to stick to a table.

Now, the wheel is wired, and has about 2 metres of cable, but it wouldn't be ideal for someone who has their lounge and xbox set up for Kinect usage as you'd probably have to sit on the floor in front of the TV. The pedals have about 4 feet of cable, so have a decent amount of space for taller people - unless your planning on driving standing up, which would be silly.

The wheel itself has a good solid feel to it, with a decent amount of tension on it's steering column, with both lightness of movement and enough resistance to make action an actual physical effort. The back of the wheel has two paddles within easy reach, and these are primarily there if you're into manual shifting. for the purposes of this review, I'll be doing just that.

Onto the games!

---F2 2010---

Car: Mclaren MP4-25

Track: Istanbul Park.

Lap Time: 1:26.733

It took a me a good while to get back into the swing of F1 2010 when I plugged the wheel in I haven't played it in quite a while and I'd completely forgotten that driving an F1 car around the track is completely different to any other kind of racing game. For a while I found myself pretty much missing every single apex on the track, and given it was my first time using a manual shift I hate to think just how many times I would have blown up a £100,000 F1 engine. When I did finally hook together a lap though, I felt absolutely brilliant. Using the wheel was intuitive and fun. Flat out through Istanbul's infamous Turn 8, I had no problem holding the wheel to the racing line and shifting up at the same time. One worry I did have was that, given the options like wing angle and engine setting are selected from the D-Pad in the centre of the wheel, it would be difficult to do all those things at once, but once I'd gotten into the habit, I selected a higher engine setting without any great difficulty. While I doubt I'm ever going to be a great threat to Seb Vettel (lets face it, who is these days), I was able to bring home a pretty decent lap time in the end.

---Need For Speed: Shift---

Car: BMW M3 GT2

Track: Brands Hatch GP

Lap Time: 1:39.099

Now, this one was certainly a bit more... Interesting. Given that it's intended as a more arcadey game anyways, NFS:Shift's cars come with a handfull of oversteer that it takes a while to get used to. I know the Brands Hatch Circuit pretty well, but it took me quite a while to hook up a half-decent lap, as I was too busy trying not to bin it into the gravel. I started with a Nissan GT-R, but it was so slidey that I decided to try with the M3 instead, and found it much better. to be honest, I've always struggled to find Grip in shift, and using the wheel didn't help much as the inherent nature of the game meant the wheel felt very sensitive. Once I'd adapted to that, however, it was pretty good - I was nailing the corners pretty well, if a little bit driftily. The earlier twitchiness did mean that out of habit I found myself shifting down a gear too far on the high speed corners, which probably accounts for my fairly slow lap time. The once fault I had with the wheel is that the Brake pedal seemed to switch suddenly between very light and very heavy with no inbetween, but again, this might just have been my heavy left foot. Once I'd gotten used to the game mechenics, it was decent fun. thank god for the runoff areas though!

---Race Driver: GRID---

Car: Chevrolet Lacetti Touring Car

Track: Donington Park National

Lap Time: None Set

Oh Dear. Oh Very Dear. The game and wheel both fell down very hard on this one. I've enjoyed GRID a lot over the year since I got it (I've only had the Xbox about 14 months) and both offline and occasionally online its been a good, punchy Arcade racer. But not with this wheel. If NFS:Shift came with a handfull of Oversteer, GRID came with both hands, legs and it's mouth full of it. I tried playing with the settings for the wheel in the games menu, I tried being less sharp with the wheel, but a typical corner went "slight turn, slight turn, slight turn, MASSIVE OVERSTEER, Spin." No matter what I did, the car simply wouldn't turn in properly to a corner, as even on front wheel drive cars like the Lacetti, the rear would step out and I'd spin the bastard. I didn't even get around a full lap of Donington before I gave up and Rage Quit. Very dissapointing.

---Forza Motorsport 3---

Car: Ford Focus ST

Track: New York Circuit

Lap Time: 1:33.771

The wheel definitely took a round back with Forza. I picked the Focus as a baseline car, and it worked pretty well, although since it wasn't race tuned, the steering felt very heavy at times, and I ran out of pedal lift before being able to brake at some of the sharper turns. The steering was still quite responsive and the gearshifts felt realistic without being clunky, and I was able to access the telemetry screen using the D-pad without any major dramas. I do have to say though, for anything like livery design and storefront on Forza, stick to the joypad - the wheel is not suited to it.

---Sega Rally Online Arcade---

Car: Skoda Fabia RS

Track: Alpine Circuit

Lap Time: 1:12:38

The wheel works, to be frank, pretty damn awesomely with this game, but to be fair, it is a very forgiving game - except when you clip a wall. Manual shifting worked as close to perfectly as you can ask, and the steering had just the right balance of sensitivity and rallying-oversteer to allow me to flick the car into the corners. I had the accelerator buried to the floor most of the time, and the brake pedal barely needed more than a dab, but I've been using the wheel both offline and online and it's won me victories in and of itself by giving me the chance to be smoother through the corners and sharper on the gearshifts. One weird bug though is that the force feedback locked on after the race and turned the wheel into a constantly vibrating presence in my lap, and I had to exit the game before it stopped.

OVERALL SCORE

4/5 games. A good score, but given that one of the games it's said to be ideal for on the box is one of the ones that let it down, make sure that you're not buying the MC2 specifically for one game, becuase if it turns out not to suit it, you're going to have a large £35 paperweight. I'd still have it over a £295 logitech paperweight any day though!

I ain't afraid of no ghost(writer).

2011-05-18T20:13:00.003+01:00

The other day, BBC 1's The One Show ran a piece on how "dishonest" the labelling of a kids book as "Enid Blyton's The new Adventures of the wishing chair" was. The reason for this is because the book was written by a ghostwriter.

Now, I've applied for work as a ghostwriter before. I've spoken to some people who have done ghostwriting. It is hard graft for very little reward, but it is also very definitively a skill. Now, the morality of supposedly making it appear that the book is written by Enid Blyton aside, personally as an ex-freelancer I feel there is a bigger issue at work that the one show didn't pick up on.

Now, for a lot of freelancers, a lot of work comes in because of reputation. Guru.com and the like are a great referral service, but the best freelancers I've seen on line are making money because people are coming to them with work.

The last ghostwritten book I bought was Eddie Guerrero's autobiography Cheating Death, Stealing Life. WWE have always been very fair to their ghostwriters, since from what I gather, they become 'one of the boys' when they're on the road with the wrestlers. You'll notice on the cover of Eddie's book that Michael Krugman, the ghostwriter, is given a cover credit. Same goes for William Regal's Walking a Golden Mile (Neil Chandler), and Ric Flair's To Be The Man (Kevin Elliot Greenberg).

Moving away from wrestling Biographies, James Hunt's Against All Odds gives Eoin Hunt fair credit for writing it, as did Robbie Williams with Somebody Someday. In the case of a lot of these, its a hardcover credit on the inside of the sleeve, with a small passage from the ghostwriter. The book is primarily credited to the celebrity, which is fair enough - thats who people are buy the book for.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Ghostwriting process, for a lot of writers it consists of interviews, spending a lot of time with the subject, a Dictaphone and a notepad.

But recently, I've noticed what, to me, is a rather disturbing trend: ghostwriters not getting a proper credit. what the one show pointed out, was the ghostwriter was named only as a dedication in the 'Enid Blyton' book.

Katie Price - better known as Jordan - has supposedly written four Autobiographies and a string of fiction novels. Except she hasn't. All the books were written by a ghostwriter named Rebecca Farnworth.

I'm sure that this doesn't come as a surprise to you. I'm pretty sure everyone figured out that Jordan trying to write would be like a dog quoting Aristotle. Also, I'm fucking AMAZED that Farnworth managed to stretch Jordan's life to four books.

Random house, Price's publisher, released a statement saying beforehand that "Rebecca Farnworth's name is clearly credited on the copyright page of the books."

Really? have you ever tried reading a book's copyright page? Its legalese blurb in the smallest available print. It's very difficult to wade through.

Now, before you think I'm slagging off celebs, I'm not. Ghostwriter's provide a valuable service by writing books people want to read. Katie Price has fully admitted she isn't a writer. She does come up with the ideas for her fiction books, but she doesn't have the ability to write them, so Farnworth does it for her. That's fair enough. Ms Farnworth has also been allowed to describe what working with Katie Price is like. It's a fascinating read, as Ghostwriters have to spend so much time with the subject.

But surely she deserves a bit more credit than a single line on the copyright page? how difficult is it for the publishers to do what WWE does and have KATIE PRICE in big screaming letters and "with Rebecca Farnworth" underneath? I have to say, it was incredibly difficult to find out who ghostwrote Steven Gerrard's book.

I don't object to the practice of Ghostwriting the way the One Show do. But I'm of the opinion that Ghostwriters deserve a fairer amount of credit for the work they do. And I'm very VERY glad I'm not one of them. In a way, writers like the one's mentioned above are luck, in that their names are getting out there. For new ghostwriters coming in, this won't be the case, and thats the kind of thing that can make or break careers.

Bendanarama And Leila Live-Blog Eurovision!

2011-05-14T22:19:00.004+01:00

So, last year, completely randomly, my friend Leila and I ended up in an enormous facebook thread about the Eurovision song contest, as it was happening. This year, we decided to do it again. And midway through, Bexychan's sister Inky turned up!

I've tried to edit this into something semi-readable. I may have failed.

Opening

Bendanarama: Well, I've got a horrible feeling that opening performance was the highlight of the evening.

Leila: XD Hah hah! That was a catchy version of Satellite.

Bendanarama: Catchy like Syphillis.

Finland

Leila: Is Finland the result of Justin Beiber and Jedward colliding and giving him music lessons with Mylie Cyrus?

Bendanarama: You know I was just thinking that

Bendanarama: Bexychan think's he's sweet. I want to stab him.

Leila: He looks like the kind of boy you'd bring home to meet your mother.

Bendanarama: He looks like the kind of boy you'd bury in a shallow grave.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Leila: What's Bruce Forsythe doing singing maths?

Bendanarama: Oh Dear sweet Jesus.

Leila: Is that dancer meant to be there?

Bendanarama: A Guy that age singing about going to school usually involves promises of candy and a windowless van.

Leila: AH HAH! Someone mentioned he looks like Eric Idle! It's almost uncanny!

Bendanarama: This event hasn't been the same since Terry Wogan stopped taking the piss out of it.

Bendanarama: and I never thought anything would make me miss Terry Wogan.

Denmark

Bendanarama: Are they Mass cloning Jedward Now?

Leila: I was just thinking that - they obviously share a stylist.

Leila: And got the same singing instructor as Finland. It sounds too much like his.

Bendanarama: This is Bitterly Torrid.

Bendanarama: It's like, Busted level rock.

Leila: Even Busted had more fire in them than this.

Bendanarama: I do hope it's not all gonna be songs about hope and love. Those suck. Give us death and destruction.

Leila: Bring back Lordi!

Bendanarama: YES,

Bendanarama: HARD ROCK HALLELUJAH!

Leila: BLOOD RED SANDMAN!

Leila: Four songs in and nothing decently bouncy and cheesy yet? Are they actually taking their entries seriously this year?

Bendanarama: You're implying they EVER take it seriously.

Lithuania

Bendanarama: Bexychan: "Generic Eurovision Diva."

Leila: Laila: "Kate Bush"

Leila: Is she subjecting the poor deaf people to her singing as well?

Leila: I'm still waiting for her to go into Wuthering Heights.

Hungary

Leila: Retro pop? Big light up jewellry? NOW WE'RE TALKING!

Bendanarama: ‎"Big Light-up Jewelery." There is no god.

Leila: My mum has a ring that size.

Bendanarama: I choose not to make a rude joke at that statement. I hope you appreciate this.

Leila: I am disappointed you didn't take the bait, Bendanarama.

Leila: Okay, so far, Hungary has impressed me.

Ireland

Bendanarama: KILL THEM. KILL THEM WITH FIRE.

Leila: THEY WILL BLOW UP THE STADIUM WITH THE AMOUNT OF HAIRSPRAY IN THOSE BOUFFANTS

Bendanarama: GRAHAM NORTON LIES.

Leila: HE'S IRISH, OF COURSE HE'S GOING TO SUPPORT THEM.

Bendanarama: Well Shit, Nietzche was right.

Leila: Lady Gaga called, she wants her wardrobe back.

Leila: In fact, I'm imagining Lady Gaga singing this now. So much better.

Bendanarama: Did no-one in Germany think to bring a fucking sniper rifle? No-one?

Leila: Apparently not.

Bendanarama: Everything about this evening thus far has been a hideous abortion of music.

Leila: Shit, the Eurovision facebook is exploding!

Bendanarama: I'll take your word for it.

Leila: It took me the whole song for my comment to get through!

Bendanarama: If only Eurovision would explode.

Bendanarama: In an Enormous fireball.

Sweden

Bendanarama: Oh Christ.

Leila: ‎.....I think I know him.

Bendanarama: This is like, the theme tune for the horribly deluded.

Leila: I'm sure he was dressed as a Pokemon on Thursday night.

Bendanarama: Bexychan: "POPULAR. LOVE ME."

Leila: Can I have his shirt?

Bendanarama: No.

Bendanarama: Just No.

Leila: Ah least he had the decency to have hot dancers.

Leila: Please?

Leila: Or one of his dancers?

Leila: Is he going to emulate David Blaine?

Bendanarama: Feel free to the dancers. Given your recent misadventures, I think they're right up your alley.

Bendanarama: or each others.

Leila: Hey, I can still watch :p

Leila: COCK GOES WHERE?

Estonia

Bendanarama: ‎"She's a big star in Estonia."

Leila: Holy shit, what is she wearing?

Bendanarama: Isn’t that like saying she's the best looking patient in a burns ward?

Leila: MAGIC!

Bendanarama: ‎...I wouldn't.

Leila: Eh, not much to comment on here for her.

Bendanarama: she has manjaw.

Greece

Leila: High hopes for Greece

Leila: Hope now wavering.

Bendanarama: I didn't know David Beckham was the greek entry this year.

Leila: This sounds like a funeral dirge crossed with a military march.

Leila: My Chemical Romance will be all over the cover for this.

Bendanarama: THE FIRES ARE RISING. THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN. VIVA LA RESISTANCE.

Russia

Leila: Oooo, okay Russia has my interest already.

Bendanarama: And Mine has already been lost.

Bendanarama: DIE.

Leila: Oh look, Kinicky from the T-Birds.

Leila: is the token black guy wearing a skirt?

Bendanarama: I'LL FEEL YOUR HEARTBEAT WHEN I RIP YOUR STILL BEATING HEART FROM YOUR CHEST YOU FUCK.

Leila: Now you see, this is appealing with the teen girl in me who collected A1 songs.

Leila: Actually, don't they look a lot like Blue?

Bendanarama: The teen girl in you, as I recall is still fairly similar to the girl outside you.

France

Bendanarama: So. this is the french favourite. Allegedly.

Leila: Ah, but the teen girl inside me wouldn't dream of getting kissed by drunk gay men dressed as Team Rocket.

Leila: Okay, I am impressed by France.

Bendanarama: That's a lie, and we both know it.

Bendanarama: We're twenty seconds in. I ain't holding my breath yet.

Leila: I dunno, he's holding interest so far.

Leila: And with his voice!

Bendanarama: Okay, I can run with this.

Bendanarama: It's a bit like Nessun Dorma.

Leila: Well done to the computer graphics geeks who did his backdrop for him.

Leila: I was trying to remember what it sounded like.

Leila: FIRE!

Leila: He gets my vote.

Italy

Bendanarama: Ooh, Italian Jazz. I'm sold.

Leila I want to sit in a smoky bar somewhere now.

Leila Ow, that note screeched a bit.

Ben Myatt That's Jazz, baby.

Leila I think I'd prefer that song if he didn't sing.

Leila: Okay, Switzerland are packing a cello. I'm curious now.

Switzerland

Bendanarama: That is the weirdest fucking green room in creation.

Bendanarama: NURBURGRING! ASTON MARTIN!

Leila: Something relevant to your blog now!

Bendanarama: That's the worst pitstop in history.

Leila: I feel they need some hula dancers there.

Inky His grin, on the bass, :D

Leila: WELCOME INKY!

Bendanarama: taking the piss out of shit TV is relevant to my blog

Leila: I want that background for a screen saver.

Inky THANK YOU ^^

Bendanarama: Na

Bendanarama: NAAAA

Bendanarama: NA

Leila: Her singing?

Leila: I'm more entranced by the background.

Bendanarama: Yes.

United Kingdom

Bendanarama: KILL THEM WITH ACID.

Bendanarama: dammit, why couldn't we get the Aston Martin.

Bendanarama: we get fucking rowers.

Leila: Go Blue Go!

Bendanarama: that sucks.

Inky I'm ashamed to say that Mam and Dad voted for Jedward...

Leila: Blame the English who are living in Germany

Leila: ‎......

Bendanarama: I'm feeling the cold fingers of another shit year already.

Inky: I would like to make it clear that we had no part in that

Leila: Oh dear Inky Oh dear.

Leila: What? Why? This is a good song!

Leila: Ah, this sounded better on single than it does live.

Bendanarama: I'm not quite sure how to feel about this,

Inky It's not very catchy D:

Leila: I like it!

Bendanarama: Your definition of a good song and mine are startlingly different, arent they?

Leila: You only just twigged this?

Bendanarama: like a flying knee to the testicles.

Bendanarama: WORST. PYRO. EVER.

Leila: Seriously, the studio version sounded so much better.

Bendanarama: That's like saying Herpes is better than Gonnorhea.

Moldolva

Bendanarama: oh, dear sweet jesus.

Inky: oh god

Leila: ‎*is currently laughing and pointing at the TV* GNOOOOMES!

Inky: I love the flying spinny gnomes in the bg

Bendanarama: I wasn’t aware ripping off the strokes was acceptable in Eurovision this year.

Leila: Oh look, as if they don't look mad enough, have a fairy on a unicycle!

Bendanarama: ‎...

Bendanarama: actually... this is pretty catchy.

Bendanarama: it's gnome-ska.

Leila: ‎......

Leila: I can NOT stop laughing.

Leila: ‎....he has a monocle!

Bendanarama: MONOCLE.

Germany

Leila: Has Germany got sperm for dancers?

Bendanarama: How far are we in? I don't have any booze, and the evening is starting to blur.

Leila: 16‎ songs in.

Bendanarama: I would.

Bendanarama: Definitely.

Leila: Germany's returning champion in to defend her title.

Leila: I'm sure Bexychan would too.

Leila: Geez, how skinny is she?

Bendanarama: Bexychan here. All I have to say on the matter is BOW CHICKA BOW WOW. Gotta love me some sexy Germans :D

Leila: This is reminding me of an 80s song.

Bendanarama: ‎"Taken by a stranger." We're back to windowless vans again.

Romania

Leila: Whoo, County Durham boy for you Bexychan!

Bendanarama: ooh, it's Bexychan and Inky's local boy.

Inky Aw yeah :D

Leila: Traitor, singing for another country

Inky Apparently he's been living there for about 5 years

Leila: Okay, this is kinda peppy.

Bendanarama: SEND HIM TO THE TOWER.

Leila: Anyone else bopping along?

Bendanarama: No.

Austria

Bendanarama: And Austria's latest horrific contribution to the world is...

Leila: Okay, an A Capella start sounds interesting.

Leila: Alexandra Burke?

Bendanarama: And she's already up there with Hitler and Fritzl in terms of Austria's exports.

Inky: Not too bad, got me swaying along

Leila: Eh, it's not grabbing me.

Azerbaijan

Leila: Running scared? Think they're confident?

Leila: Somewhere only we know, somewhere only we know~~

Bendanarama: Who let Azerbaijan's cheap clone of J-LO in?

Bendanarama: IF this doesn't end with live fucking on stage I'm disappointed and they have lost my vote.

Bendanarama: VOTE. LOST.

Leila: Looks like they lost your vote.

Leila: And they're supposed to be the favourites this year.

Slovenia

Leila: I want her gloves.

Bendanarama: That eurovision heart looks a pair of throbbing testicles.

Leila: ‎*covetting those boots*

Leila: Can I mug her for those boots?

Bendanarama: Seriously, enormous pair of nuts.

Leila: I'll catch them the next eyecatch.

Bendanarama: sure. go wild. just make sure you kill them all.

Leila: I think each of them has an item of clothing I want. Easy enough.

Leila: You must have a weird pair of nuts.

Iceland

Leila: Iceland isn't too bad.

Bendanarama: I can run with this one.

Bendanarama: Is that James Corden?

Leila: Could very well be

Spain

Bendanarama: Spain will suck. They just will.

Leila: I'm dancing already.

Bendanarama: Yup. Sucks. Balls.

Leila: I quite like this.

Leila: This is a nice light hearted summer song.

Bendanarama: You Would.

Ukraine

Leila: Did he just say Ukraine's Got Talent?

Leila: ‎!! I recognise the sand artist!

Leila: She skinned a poor bird for her dress!

Leila: That artist is so awesome.

Leila: Okay, hands up if you paid more attention to the arty background as opposed to her singing?

Inky: Was mesmerised by the sand painting that I ignored the song

Inky: Yeah, that XD

Serbia

Leila: ‎....

Leila: I'M SOLD.

Bendanarama: I see Serbia are catching up to fashion trends sixty years too late.

Leila: I want the green dress

Inky: Ok, this one is great

Bendanarama: And I want to drink until I'm unconscious. I guess we're all losing today.

Bendanarama: OH GOD THE BACKGROUND IS GIVING ME A FITESOFJ{AOFJOAHFOHFDS{AOF

Leila: Who needs alcohol when that screen is enough to send you loopy?

Georgia

Leila: Georgia are dressed interestingly.

Bendanarama: Oh God. I smell sweat and despair

Leila: Flashing lights? Haven't there been enough already? Why warn now?

Leila: NEEEEEXT

Bendanarama: WINNING.

Leila: It's Linkin Park rehashed.

Bendanarama: Georgia does Linkin Park!

Leila: With Amy Winehouse on vocals.

Bendanarama: FUCKING SOLD. MY VOTE IS GIVEN.

Leila: I'm sticking with France this year.

Leila: I might like this song if it was a gravelly male voice.

Bendanarama: Yes. Just. Fucking. YEs.

Inky: The skirt of her dress is awful.

Into the Voting

Leila: So Inky, who are you voting for?

Inky: Moldova :D

Inky: Parents have voted for Ireland, Italy and Romania

Bendanarama: Georgia. It's on.

Leila: France, Russia and Hungary.

Leila: I will be very sorely disappointed if France doesn't get top 3 at least.

Bendanarama: georgia, iceland, moldolva.

Bendanarama: Bexychan is having a freakout. Graham Norton is talking on the TV AND ON HER PHONE.

Leila: XD

Bendanarama: WINNING.

Leila: Why is there a Turkey flag there? Turkey didn't get into the final.

Leila: How many UK voters will have voted for Jedward, you think?

Bendanarama: too fucking many.

Leila: This is going to be interesting.

------

And in an update, Azerbaijan went on to win. Despite the lack of on stage fucking. It was a entertaining year, despite a severe lack of booze, and it was mainly tolerable because I spent most of the evening sitting there taking the piss out of it.

Possession is nine tenths of the law.

2011-05-11T22:17:00.000+01:00

For a few years now, I've had recurring nightmares about being possessed. I don't know why.

Normally, they follow watching a film or reading a story about demonic possession, but not always. The other night, Bex told me I'd been shouting in my sleep. I know for a fact that I was dreaming about being possessed again.

It's weird. It's also terrifying. I don't know where it started, but I know for a fact that Demonic possession is one of the single scariest concepts for me on the face of the planet. The idea of something taking you over, corrupting you from the inside out. That horrifies me. That and werewolves.

Werewolves freak me the fuck out.

But anyways. The dreams I've been having have always had the same creature in them. When I was doing a podcast about three years ago, I described a pair of vivid green eyes that I kept seeing in my minds eye. I used to imagine them for years, and I always used to associate them with a very specific place.

When I was a lot younger, My family and I used to stay at my Grandma's house for a couple of weeks every year in the summer. It was quite an oldish house. There was a long corridor between the bedroom me and my sisters stayed in, and the bathroom at the back of the house. That corridor scared the living shit out of me. I have no idea why. Probably, this whole green eyes thing was me mentally giving some kind of visualisation to the feelings of fear that I had. The corridor was probably only about ten feet long, but it was like the impending chasm of Doom.

Recently though, the dream changed from just being the eyes to a more creepy image of a skeletal figure crawling up the bed and looming over me, staring with those same green eyes. Often as not, this occurs when I'm still lucid, so I'm hanging just between sleep and wakefullness, completely conscious of the shape of the bed around me and the setting of the bedroom. That's probably what freaks me out the most. Other than that vivid mental image, it seems to take all the traditional symptoms of the Nightmare.

So Yeah. That's what I've been doing lately. How about you?

Just one of the many pitfalls of Fanfiction.

2011-05-08T21:05:00.004+01:00

Well, despite the exceptionally busy weekend timetable I posted on Friday, I managed to get both the third chapter of Time and Tide and the Eighth chapter of Critical situation completed last night. This was good, because it meant I could watch the excellent Turkish Grand Prix with impunity without the obligation to write fanfiction hanging over my head.

And yes, I do consider it an obligation. When I get notifications telling me people signing up to the mailing list to receive updated on the story it tends to guilt trip me into writing more.

I finished the fanfiction chapter at about quarter to one last night, and posted it up straight away. I was pretty damn proud of this chapter. I know that sounds stupid but whilst I'm not proud of writing fanfiction (because, well, it's fanfiction) I am pretty proud when I write something that I know has been written well.

Anyways, I got up this morning, and as is my want, I check my reviews. And lo and Behold, theres this gem:

"The fic looks interesting but why you had to put TK drunkenly having sex with another girl? good thing he and Kari weren't dating so no harm done but still it was that really necesary for Kari and him to realize it wouldn't work? I mean wouldn't have simply better that they realized they're like brother and sister without having to add TK having sex with another girl after telling Kari that he loves her? o.o"

Now, I know the guy who wrote this review. He's a nice guy, but like a lot of people on FFnet, he takes his fandom a leeeetle too seriously. It should also be noted that English is not his first Language, so please forgive his grammar.

Now, the mention of TK's drunken Sexcepades was literally one line. Maybe twenty words out of a 2000+ word chapter. Yet this is the line he chose to focus on and complain about. I don't normally respond to reviews, but I decided to in this case.

"Because It adds tension, and because that "Realising they were like brother and sister" shit is dull. what it also illustrates is that this fic is different than usual and that none of the characters are their usual paragons of virtue. On top of that, I also mentioned that there was a bitterness betwen Kari and TK In chapter 4. This is the source of that. It's not a "TK is a bastard" Line. It's a "TK is Human and made a mistake that poleaxed his and Kari's potential relationship" Line."

And there I thought the matter would rest. I had given an explanation of why the line was in there. a few minutes later, I got a message back:

"Yeah but still why TK has to be the one making a mistake? why not Kari herself for a change? is just that in most Daikari fics whenever they include TK and Kari dating it always it TK the one making the mistake that causes the break up, that is so overused that it is as dull as the brother and sister thing, believe me, I have seen that a lot. That's why I kinda didn't liked it much since I felt it was the same cliche, only that you didn't had them dating, just TK telling her that he loves her. Still Kari herself said it, he was drunk, how do we know if it wasn't the girl the one getting him drunk to get him? You know how there are girls that aren't precisely angels and would do anything to get the guy they want.

Still dunno, I didn't liked it much, also it is really necesary to have TK in love with Kari and then making a mistake? Why there has to be a tension? as far I saw it really didn't added anything to the main plot, just with using the TK studying outside Japan was enough actually.

You're a great writer man, that was the reason why I reviewed that chapter of your fic, because you can do it better than that, there are a lot of other tension sources you can use.

Also TK made a mistake so what? in that sense then the one wrong was Kari. TK was drunk, he wasn't concious of what he did and yet she begruded that o.o

Sorry if it sounded a bit rantish, is just that I felt it a tiny bit like attacking Takari, but maybe is just me."

Okay, after this one, I was starting to get a little pissed off. The problem with writing fanfiction is that you have to deal with fandoms, and the digimon fandom has more splinter groups than a Terrorist convention. My annoyance stemmed partly from the fact that I've not only gone out of the way to not attack other fandoms, I've made an issue over people from my Fandom attacking others, because it's fucking stupid. What really ground my gears, though, was the "It didn't add anything to the main plot" line.

Excuse me? I wasn't fucking aware that I'd told you the entirety of my plans for this fucking fic! making an issue over fandom bullshit is one thing, primarily since I don't care about it, but deciding on the basis of one line what affects the plot and doesn't pisses me right off. So yeah, response time.

"Oh, for God's sake ****, Give over.

1) In my personal experience, nine times out of ten it is a bloke who who goes out, gets off his face and shags someone.

2) I need Kari to feel hurt for the purposes of the story. Pretty much every character in this fic is damaged goods

3) How do you know it doesn't add anything to the main plot. we're still very much in the early stages here. You're assuming an awful lot about this story there.

4) It was nothing to do with attacking Takari. Takari is a none-factor in this fic. I made that very clear early on.

5) A lot of your message comes across as the usual "I don't want to see my favourite character have a flaw" nonsense. Kari will have flaws that will be explored later in the story. TK have flaws that are being put out of the way here. I get this same line from Daikari fans every time I have Davis be a fuck-up in my stories, so I've seen it before, dude. I know you like TK, but please don't assume there isn't a purpose in the plot for what I'm writing. With the exception of "As Long as She's Happy" - which was a piece of shit story with no redeeming features - I've never had throwaway moments of TK being an Arse, so please don't assume this is one.

Now this response may come across as a bit Rantish, but I don't like that it feels you're trying to impose your personal preference of TK as a paragon of Virtues on my fic. I also don't appreciate that you see me making a line about TK where he makes a mistake that poleaxes his relationship with Kari, and you assume it's an attack on your fandom, since - barring my early days where I was a ranty teenager - I have a very good record of not attacking your fandom, unlike a lot of other Daikari authors.

I appreciate you taking the time to write your concerns, but please do not assume that I'm making a random attack on TK, or that you know where this story is going. What I'd like you to do is ask yourself if I had said that Kari's boyfriend, who she loved dearly - but was not TK - went and cheated on her, would you have the same reaction."

So yeah, slightly snarky response there, I have to admit. But as I'm sure you can see, this was something that annoyed me. I genuinely felt this guy was trying to impose his own version of the character on my own - and worse, made it clear in his response that he felt my writing was worse for not adhering to his definition of what the character would do. That really made me rather angry. I'm trying to write a story, and I'm told that basically, a big part of it is shit because I don't view someone's favourite character as the paragon of all earthly virtues. Fandom shit has always been something that pisses me off. I'll admit, I went through that phase, but got out of it very early on. I started writing fanfiction ten years ago, and this guy was still doing this same stuff then.

It's this constant attitude that I should compromise what I'm writing to cater to the people reading it. It's also this apparent assumption that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing when it comes to my own goddamn story.

Word to the wise. I'm writing it. I've planned it. I've researched it. Please don't fucking assume you know better than me what I'm going to write. I'm quite happy to accept criticism, when there is some basis for it. Just because you don't like what I've done with your precious favourite character, doesn't mean something is poorly written.

Grow the fuck up.

I like to Plan my Procrastination.

2011-05-06T19:52:00.003+01:00

I'm determined to get writing done this weekend. I Need to get writing done this weekend. I need to finish of chapter three of Time and Tide and I pretty much should do a chapter of Critical Situation before the three people who are reading it decide to kick me square in the nuts for yet again not sticking to my promises in relation to chapter updates.

Of course, that isn't gonna be easy. I'm planning on having something resembling a lie-in tomorrow - although given that all last week when I was off I only managed to sleep past 7:30am once and that was when I'd drunk myself into something resembling a catatonic state the night previously. The problem is, I've got far too much going on this weekend.

Now, I'm most definitely not a social animal, so you can assume from the tone of my previous entries that this is gonna involve me watching cars going round a track at high speeds.

and goddamn but theres a lot of good action on this weekend. The Turkish Grand Prix is looking like a scorcher - although if it turns out to be a wet race it's definitely gonna be intriguing since Seb Vettel decided to park his RB7 in the wall at the exit of Turn Eight. Last I checked they were still rebuilding it, so the world champion is losing a lot of very necessary practice and setup time.

On top of that, theirs the 1000km's of Spa in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. I'm starting to really get into Endurance racing because I just love the design of the cars, and with the Audi R18 and Peugeot 908 getting their first racing runs in the race thats essentially a dress rehearsal for the 24 hours of Le Mans next month. I was actually slightly tempted by the idea of watching the whole 24 hours this year, then I realised that during the night bugger all happens .

But I digress: In the vague hope I wake up at 8am-9am tomorrow, I'm gonna try and start writing straight away.

Wait a damn minute. Free practice 3 starts at 9am, and runs till 10:55.

qualifying coverage for Turkey starts 11am. It runs till 1pm. At approximately 1pm the coverage at Spa begins on Eurosport. Of course, I can write after that race ends.

At about 6pm.

Oh Shit. Doctor Who starts at 6pm. It has pirates. I can't miss Doctor Who with Pirates!

Okay, so 7pm. I can write from 7pm.

But it's the weekend. I put off playing videogames through the week to write. And Saturday night is the best time for Multiplayer shenanigans. So that makes Saturaday night a write off, realisitically.

Okay, so, Sunday. I'll try on Sunday.

Dammit, GP2 is on Eurosport as well. After my blog entry about single seater feeder series earlier in the year theres no way I can justify not watching the start of the GP2 series this year. Otherwise I'll just look even more like a bell-end who doesn't know what he's talking about. More so than usual.

Okay, I'll write after the GP2 raaaaaaaagoddammit the Grand Prix starts after the GP2 race. And after the Race, I'll have to watch the F1 Forum. Because it's awesome.

right. okay. We're encroaching on, like, 3pm at this time. Half of my Sunday writing time is gone. Better get down to ooooh videogame time. Gotta get in my Videogame time. Not gonna get it during the week. I've gotta devote that time to writing. I APPRECIATE THE IRONY.

Well, Sunday night, right, Sunday night, I can get my writing done.

Aw, hell, Richard Hammond's engineering connections starts at 7:10pm. Then it's Britain's Secret Seas, which looks awesome. Then Lord Sugar is investigating football at 9pm. That looks awesome too. Okay, so I generally go to bed around 11pm on a night before work unless it's my extra long shift on mon... and goddammit it's my extra long shift on Monday. 10:30 to eleven Bed time.

So. I've got half an hour to write in between ten and ten-thirty. But my Awesome wife will want me to pay attention to her at some point this weekend. Better pencil her in for here.

I give up. This weekend is far to awesome to be conductive to a good writing atmosphere.

What an odd way to start the week.

2011-05-03T19:33:00.002+01:00

Well, time to get on with that ambition of actually writing something. And of keeping up with blog entries. And trying to make this into less of a Motorsport blog - since all and sundry have told me they don't generally read my motorsport entries. So yeah, I'm now trying to get back into the swing of things.

And prevent my blog becoming a glorified Livejournal.

So anyways, yeah, writing.

Gonna try and set myself a bit of a target - I'm gonna stop playing video games as much as possible through the week (other than the odd game of Assassins Creed multiplayer to keep my rep up!) And I'm gonna focus on writing... something each night.

Yet again, fuck knows what.

I think some novel tonight. Maybe a wee bit of fanfic. Maybe.

Writing. It's a funny old game.

2011-05-01T19:36:00.005+01:00

I've come to a conclusion. It's not a particularly nice conclusion.

I cannot write when I have the actual time to write. See, I've been on Holiday for the last eleven days. I've Written about half a page of my new novel, and absolutely nothing of any fanfiction. Hell, the fact that I've started writing goddamn Fanfiction again should be enough to convince you that I like to write. No-one writes fanfiction with the intention of making money off it. Because lets face it, nothing screams bestseller like "Jesus and Hitler: A Romance."

I know it's a troll, but I had to work that shit into it somehow. Although, to be honest the Reviews are funnier than the fic itself.

Where was I?

Oh Yeah, writing.

Over the last week or so, I've done virtually no writing. I've sat down at times, thinking "I should write," But every time I've found something to distract me. I think I've figured out what my issue is.

I started writing fanfiction when I was at school, primarily as a way of escapism, and then because I simply started to enjoy writing. But I enjoy other things too, like gaming, watching movies, watching sport, and watching endless amounts of Top Gear.

Oh. And Webcomics. Let's not forget the webcomics.

Actually, lets, because much as I love webcomics, the last time I wrote about them, Doug TenNapel decided to hatefuck my blog on Twitter.

Anyways, I think the keyword in all of that was escapism. I tend to do my best writing when I get home from work, same as I tended to write prolifically when I got back from school at the age of 15. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean I wrote well, considering my most popular earlier piece of fanfiction was a Digimon flavoured Rip-off of Notting Hill.

I Don't even know why I linked to that. It's shit. But for some reason, people like it.

But anyways, I recently went back to writing fanfiction, and popped out two chapters and a half chapter of original writing in the space of a week.

Then I went on holiday, and I've written... Nothing. Nada. Zip. I've planned some bits and come up with ideas for my novel, but I haven't written shit. And I think it's entirely because I don't need to escape from my current scenario of dossing around, playing video games and getting lashed until I shout at Taxi drivers.

But I go back to work on Tuesday.

Better get the fuckin' notepad out, hadn't I?

Oh, and I'm gonna try and blog more. Again.

I Am Not Like Them.

2011-04-03T21:34:00.003+01:00

This is probably going to be the single most personal entry you'll ever read on my blog. Bear with me.

So, It's 9:34pm on a Sunday night, I've spent the day watching the British Touring Car Championship and for the last 34 minutes, I've been staring at the TV with my jaw hitting the floor, because frankly I can't believe that such sheer hatred and belligerent disgust can come out of the mouths of such self righteous people.

I am, of course, watching Louis Theroux's follow up to his 2007 documentary "The Most hated family in America."

Now, I'm going to say this straight up: I am a Catholic. I am a Christian, and I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins to save me from hell. And the members of the Westboro Baptist Church make me feel thoroughly ashamed to believe.

I grew up believing that God loves everyone. I grew up believing that every single person on this planet, be they of different race, creed, gender and sexuality is beloved by god.

A couple of years ago I was sat in a car with one of my best friends, who is an Atheist. He asked me if I believed that he was going to hell.

This is the image people have of Christians thanks to people like the Westboro Baptist Church. They have this image that if we find out they're gay, or an Atheist, or a Muslim, that we'll tell them they're going to hell.

I told my friend no. I told him that he will still go to heaven.

Because that little event 2011 years ago? That's what that was all about. The fact that god loves everyone, regardless of race, creed or faith.

But what the Westboro Baptist Church says goes completely against that. Like many other Christian sects of that mold, their policy is that the only way to Heaven is if you do it their way. Unless you adhere to the strict guidance that they declare is the word of god, then you are doomed to burn in hell.

Yes, they believe that the people who picket the funerals of dead soldiers with signs proclaiming that "God Hates Fags" and "Soldiers Burn In Hell."

They try to justify this by saying it's gods love that compels them to do this. To Me though, all this is is hate. God said Love thy neighbour, not judge him and tell him that he will burn in hell. I certainly don't remember God saying that it was cool to tell the Jews that they deserved the holocaust because they crucified Christ, and I certainly don't remember the part of the bible when it said that it was okay to tell a Muslim man his wife died because he told the members of the church to eave him alone.

These people don't preach the word of God. They twist it into something that is simple and easy to understand: Hatred.

And I'm sick of being looked at like I'm one of them.

I am not like them. And I think it's about time that all peoples of all faiths stood up and said "I am not like them. I am not like Osama Bin Laden. I am not like Fred Phelps. I am not an extremist. I am willing to listen to you. I am willing to speak to you like another human being. And I want to be heard."

My name is Ben Myatt. I am a Christian. But I don't hate you if you aren't - because we're all human.

How about you?

The Rickety Ladder to Formula One.

2011-03-17T19:53:00.011Z

A couple of months back, I wrote an entry about how Paul Di Resta was coming into Formula One from a different route by joining from the DTM ranks. Recently, I've been thinking about the various different rookies who'd entered the series from the more traditional single seater ladder. I have to admit, part of this line of thought has come because a couple of Formula 3 Drivers have suddenly started following me on Twitter.

It got me thinking about how the single seater feeder series, from Formula Ford right up to GP2 are bringing through some rookie drivers who never seem quite prepared for Formula One. Now, there is a very distinct ladder to the single seater pantheon, and at each stage, supposedly it is the drivers talent and ability that allows them to attract sponsors and ascend to the next level. It's like a pyramid of drivers, with the number of available seats decreasing at each level. This is, to be fair, the natural way of dispersing a limited amount of seats to the drivers who deserve them - HRT's policy of 'the guy with the most money drives' Non-withstanding.

So, with this filtering process and the amount of seats available, why does it seem that so many rookies coming through struggle quite so badly with the leap to Formula One? We've seen proof that these guys are talented. Nico Hulkenberg was unassailable in GP2, Before last year Bruno Senna's reputation as a race driver was excellent (And was still good enough to get him a test role at Lotus-Renault), Lucas di Grassi was a Macau Grand Prix winner and Karun Chandok had visited podiums in GP2. Yet of all of the 2010 only rookies - Kamui Kobayashi having debuted in 2009 - only Vitaly Petrov has managed to hold onto his race seat for the 2011 season. All of them have credibility, so why did they struggle so much when they stepped up that final rung on the ladder into F1?

As we've established, these are credible drivers - and Kobayashi also had a hell of a year and was probably the most sensational rookie of all, despite being an also-ran in GP2, with his biggest prize in the feeder series being a GP2 Asia championship.

So, realistically, one has to point the finger of blame at the cars. We know there are talented drivers, championship-capable drivers, coming up the ladder, but the problem is that the ladder is composed entirely of single-make series.

Formula Ford uses the same specification of Chassis, although Mygale, Spectrum and Van Diemen all manufacture them. These Chassis are virtually identical in terms of design:

Formula 3 overwhelmingly uses the Dallara F3 chassis for all the various series, although again there is a small output from some other manufacturers.

And when you get above the F3 level, there is literally no diversity in the cars used: the GP3 and GP2 series, which support F1 races directly, all use exactly the same specification of Dallara Chassis:

And yet, when you get to Formula One, there is a different design of car for each team. From Red Bull to HRT, each car not only looks different, they perform differently, drive differently and react differently. From a level playing field, lower tier drivers who get the opportunity to step up to the ultimate stage are then handed a box of tools that is completely different to the team in the garage next to you. All of the drivers in the lower Formulae can change setups on their cars, but at the end of the day, it's still exactly the same car.

Furthermore, with this leap comes the extra pressure that comes from being a Formula One driver. In the lower formulae, most of the sponsors tend to be companies related to Motorsport, but F1 is big money. None of those teams can afford to have a driver who isn't performing, and consequently the rookies coming through seem to only have the one season to sink or swim. And whilst there are more rookies coming through, the transience of these drivers means that the age of the F1 field is increasing season by season.

So what's the solution? the obvious one would be to encourage competing chassis and manufacturers in the lower formulae - but the costs involved in developing the different cars, which would then be passed to the teams, prohibits this. In the current climate, keeping costs down for the different series is paramount - Formula Renault UK only had 11 drivers turn up for their pre-season test a couple of weeks ago, and there are worries that the costs of the series are starting to drive teams out of competing since Renault introduced to newer-spec car, and thats for a single-make national competition. Potentially, the way to encourage difference in driving ability is to do exactly what Force India are doing and look to different styles of series like DTM for their drivers - but this presents its own brand of problems, seeing as Touring Car racing is a completely different style to Single Seaters.

Truthfully, there is no real solution - the system we have now works, because at the end of the day teams will always need drivers. When one retires, there has to be another one to replace them. But perhaps, as a reader for Autosport suggested in a letter that we have none-championship F1 races as well as young driver tests. This could work, but would the F1 teams be willing to shoulder the costs of running their cars for very little reward?

It isn't a problem now, nor will it mean the death of Formula One - but Formula One will not benefit from an increasingly larger field of inexperienced drivers who have been unceremoniously dropped in the deep end.

dammit

2011-03-16T15:45:00.001Z

Bex wins. her album is way better than mine. curse your musical taste, wife of mine!

Formula One: The Album.

2011-03-15T23:10:00.004Z

So, Bex and I were just having a... Strenuous debate over the potential perfect Formula One soundtrack album. So, being the douchebag I am, I just had to throw out a challenge. Bex and I are both going to create our own perfect F1 album, and see who comes up with the goods. It'll be me, of course. But I like to give her a sporting chance.

So, the two ground rules:

There will be duplicate entries. Contrary to popular opinion, Bex and I do have some similar tastes, and some songs just resonate. And of course, The Chain is THE Formula One song.

The Album shall be thirteen songs in length.

So... Here we go:

---

1) Fleetwood Mac - The Chain.

Where else was this song going to go but as the first song on the album? It's been the BBC F1 intro for a long time, and I guarantee you that any F1 fan who hears that baseline will instantly perk up like a startled meerkat.

2) Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild.

Does this really need any explanation? Better known as the theme tune from Easy Rider, there are very few better driving tunes, and this is a rev-up special.

3) Linkin Park - Bleed it out.

This is my 'three red lights tune.' The buildup to that second when the clutches engage, the accelerators get floored and the cars scream away in a cloud of rubber smoke.

4) 30 seconds to Mars - Kings and Queens.

Simply an awesome power tune, and great for a mid-race adrenaline burst.

5) Embrace - Ashes.

Another one thats associated with the 2009 season for me, and specifically Brawn GP's phoenix like rise to both championships.

6) Oasis - Stay Young.

Not Oasis' most rocky track, but definitely one that fits into the racing music category. It's rhythm just seems to fit.

7) The Killers - When you were young.

A nice, Growly rock tune that Bounces along at a good speed with a bass line that sounds like an engine going. Perfect F1 music.

8) Rage Against The Machine - Bulls On Parade.

One Bex and I agree on: This is Red Bull Racings signature tune for us now.

9) Chris Cornell - You Know My Name.

I have to admit, this one was a toss up between this and Live and Let Die, and this won for me. Also known as the theme tune from Casino Royale, like a lot of Bond theme tunes, it has that Action Movie Adrenaline feel.

10) Carly Simon - Nobody Does it Better.

This one is perfect for a champion montage. Perfect for slow motion highlights.

11) Queen - We are the Champions

What else? Really, this is one of those tunes that would simply have to be on this album. Especially since it's tradition that the winner of the Japanese Grand Prix sings it in the circuit Karaoke bar after the race.

12) Florence + The Machine - You've got the love.

This song will always be associated with the 2009 season for me, since it was used as the outro. It would make a very smooth driving song as well.

13) Alistair Griffin - Just Drive.

Bex pointed out that this isn't exactly a classic song, but to me thats not the point - it's a song that will always be irrevocably linked with Formula One, since it was used by the BBC for their highlight video:

I will admit, it may be more of a testament to the BBC Team's editing skills than the song itself, but its still says 'F1' to me. And, if nothing else, it deserves it's place here for getting Eddie Jordan's voice onto the Radio One top 40.

---

So, theres my perfect Formula One Album. Bex is going to do her own version, and if you want to comment with your own suggestions, feel free.

Bendanarama's alternative Motorsport Preview

2011-03-14T20:38:00.005Z

SO, The Formula One seasons was Nearly upon us. Then It wasn't. Now it is again, so Yay!

But whilst every other blog, website and Twitter feed is blazing towards the F1 seasons with Bated Breath, I've decided to do an alternative Motorsport preview, hopefully pointing out some races you're missing out on.

WTCC.

The World Touring Car Championship is facing a difficult season, if we're honest. With SEAT Pulling out in 2010 and BMW throwing their toys out of the pram in 2011 (They didn't fancy adapting to new engine rules - in ANY touring car Series) The championship has been left with just two Works Manufacturers, four factory Chevrolet Cruze's and a single Factory Volvo. With the Chevrolet team riding high as champions, you could be forgiven for thinking that the blue boys are going to storm it.

That said, what this does do is open the field up for independent runners to really make a story of this season. All of the former Works SEAT Leon 2.0 Tdi's are now being run independently, as well as a handful of BMW 320si's - although the BMW field is arguably poorer without Andy Priaulx. But with the first race starting from a rolling start and the second from a traditional standing start, the Series is haphazard enough and full of enough Touring Car action - on Grand Prix Tracks no less - that you get some very good races. Last years championship was decided by poor stewarding, but I have high hopes for this year, even with the lack of factory entrants.

Where to watch.

Eurosport shows the races live, and will show the AutoGP support series races once they come into play at Monza. The first race of the season is this weekend from the Autódromo Internacional de Curitiba in Brazil.

Here's some highlights of last season for you:

---

Superleague Formula

Football And Motorsport. I want you to think about that for a second. Football, combined with roaring V12 Single Seater Formula cars on fat slick tyres racing at some truly awesome Tracks. The Cars all sound fantastic, and the Racing is usually very, very good. Last years championship went very much down to the wire, with Tottenham Hotspurs' Craig Dolby undoubtedly cursing the fact that the Beijing round was a non-championship race due to the street track lacking the necessary FIA license, and losing to Anderlecht's Davide Rigon by just two points. The Series also seems to be very stable, so none of the teams seem to be scrabbling round for budgets or settling for drivers of limited talent who are willing to pay for their seat. It isn't quite a stepping stone to F1 yet, but it very much could be in the future.

The Race uses a similar format to a football match, with two main races of 40-45 minutes with the second race as a reversed grid, and a "SuperFinal" five lap shootout, with the top six drivers from the weekend racing for a prize of €100,000. The races feature rolling starts that are delightfully haphazard, since the cars can overtake from the moment the poleman reaches the start/finish line.

Where to watch.

While you can watch the races on ESPN in the UK or, rather oddly, on Bloomberg possibly the best way is to take advantage of the live stream on the Championship's Website.

And to encourage your patronage, here's the opening moments of the first round of the 2010 championship at Silverstone:

---

FIA GT1 and GT3 Championships

Do I really need to sell this one to you? DB9's, Murcielago's Ford-GTs, Nissan GT-Rs, Corvettes and Maseratis go Head to Head on a packed grid in some of the best sportscar racing in the world. To top that, it's supported at the European fixtures by the GT3 series which features BMW Z4's, Audi R8s, and in the near future the McLaren MP4-12c. The only downside to this series is that is has robbed the Le Mans grid a bit, since the legendary 24 hour race is having to go without it's GT1 runners this year due to a fixture clash.

Where to watch.

Again, ESPN or Bloomberg show the races, with the series kicking off on the 27th March - the evening after F1's opening race in Australia in the morning. Some highlights of last years race at Silverstone:

---

BTCC

And Last but not in any way least, the British Touring Car Championship.

Somewhat ironically, this national series is currently looking far stronger than the WTCC, with with at two strong manufacturer entries - Chevrolet Cruzes and Honda Civics - and a massive field of Independents with greater variety than the WTCC. Currently, as well as the BMW's and SEAT's of the world championship, the BTCC also features Protons Gen-2's, Chevrolet Lacetti's, Older Ford Focus STs, Vauxhall Vectras, Honda Integras, VW Golfs, Audi A4s, Toyota Avensis' and the new 'Global' Ford Focus. The Series has three races per weekend, as well as a full racecard of supports ranging from Formula Renault to the Clio Cup. Now in it's 54th year, the series is currently going to a new strength with it's new "Next-Generation Touring Car" rules opening the field up substantially.

Given the tight twisty nature of most British tracks, and that fact that a lot of the races tend to take place on the shorter variants of circuits, the panel bashing fun and close pack racing are a near constant.

Where to watch.

ITV4 currently shows the Entirity of BTCC race day, including all the support races. Here's some highlights from 2010!

---

Well, this is far from a complete list of whats available out there, but they're certainly an alternative to Formula One, and can often be a lot more fun and frolicky. All of these series are relatively easy to find, along with other like the various Le Mans series, Formula 2 and the various Formula 3 series around the world. Hell, even Indycar and NASCAR are becoming more available through streaming, so theres plenty of choice to tide you over both before and during the F1 season.

-Bendanarama

My secret life as a renaissance courtesan, or how I came to love Assassins Creed Multiplayer.

2011-03-13T21:05:00.005Z

I've been playing an awful lot of Assassins creed Multiplayer lately. One could almost say it's my latest obsession. I've developed this nasty habit of walking up to people in the middel of a crowd and suddenly puncturing various parts of their anatomy.

It's an incredibly fun experience.

When It's done right. What I have here is a brief guide to the groups of people on Assassins creed multiplayer who will Absolutely ruin your goddamn day.

The Sprinter.

On the scale of annoyance, the sprinter ranks pretty low. To be fair, what they do is more a sign of abject incompetence than anything else. What's scary is that you see these people running around with level 20-plus status. How, is beyond me, since the sprinter is characterised by running around in bloody circles, on the same route, apparently hoping that no-one will figure out what they're doing. Right up until the point someone stabs them in the Abdomen.

Defining characteristics: Running around like a headless chicken, in the vague hope that no-one else has ever played on the same map, ever.

How to deal with them: Stand in one place, then stab them in the face, while singing the 'chariots of fire' theme tune down the microphone.

The Mountaineer

The Mountaineer was apparently born on the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, hanging from a ledge. The Mountaineer scaled the face of Everest at the age of two, and dived off the top with a hang glider. Now, The Mountaineer has turned to his greatest challenge: Assassins Creed Multiplayer. But his strange upbringing has bred into him one horrifying fear - a complete and abject horror of ever being on street level. As a consequence of this debilitating phobia, he'll spend the entirety of every round up on the rooftops, surveying his supposed kingdom, daring you to climb into His Territory.

Defining characteristics: Constant use of the free running function, despite this leaving him completely exposed at all times. Occasionally in extreme cases, spending the entire round perched on top of a jump point pretending to be Batman.

How to deal with them: Stand at street level, select the hidden gun, target them, and shoot. Then listen to the rants over the Xbox voice channel.

The CODder.

Anyone whose ever been on XBox Live Know's the CODder. They barely need mentioning. They're the guys who think all games should work exactly like the Call Of Duty Franchise. If you beat them, you're cheating. IF they beat you, they're the greatest gamer who ever lived. One of these guys swore at me for a solid minute for "Stealing his Kill." Despite the fact that he was half a map away. And it wasn't his target.

Defining characteristics: The Incessant ability to NEVER SHUT THE FUCK UP. Constant uses of variants of the word's "Fag", "Homo", "Queer," and anything else they can use to try and make themselves look tough in the overwhelming evidence of their own repressed homosexuality.

How to deal with them: Shit, if I knew how to get rid of these bell-ends, I'd have told the world by now. For the moment, I'll settle for using the mute button. On a note one of these guys declared that people who use the female characters are "Kinda Homo."

----

So, there's a small sample of the wonderful people awaiting you in Assassins creed. Of course, like any multiplayer game, there are a ton of awesome people as well. You'll meet plenty of folks who play the game properly, and actually score a metric ton of points doing so. Honestly, I've never had so much fun being Poisoned, stabbed, shot, slammed, and thrown from rooftops onto my head. I'll see you in Wanted. But you won't see me until I stab you in the neck.

Why I prefer Nerf Now to Ratfist.

2011-03-04T20:46:00.004Z

Since my blog got a ton of hits last night from a two sentence review, I felt I should clarify something. I do not think Ratfist is a bad piece of work. I think it's a brilliantly drawn comic, with writing that just isn't my cup of tea.

A commenter yesterday seemed very offended that I dared to give Nerf Now a ton of praise in comparison to Ratfist. You want to know the reason why?

Because at 8:30 in the morning when I feel crappy and I'm building up to go to work, Nerf Now makes me smile in a way Ratfist doesnt.

Nuff said.

Grieving is okay, but don't exploit it for cheap fame + Webcomics!

2011-03-03T21:14:00.005Z

Annoyance of the moment:

TNA's Jeremy Borash apparently tells a fan he hopes his whole family dies on twitter.

As you can see from Rajah.com's report, apparently the guy was very upset because his parent actually were dead.

A few points though:

Yes, JB is out of order if he did send this message. I don't deny that - it's an extraordinarily douchebaggy thing to do, even if he had no way of knowing the guys family were dead.

However, apparently JB saying this makes it okay for the dude to send obnoxious messages to Dixie Carter on Twitter (who, in my opinion, does a hell of a lot more to ingratiate herself to fans in the UK than WWE does). two wrongs do not make a right.

Mostly what annoys me though is this guy talking about how upset he is Whilst running straight to wrestling news sites to get himself some face time. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I lost my dad last year. If someone in TNA insulted my Dad, my first impulse would not be "I'll run to the new sites to tell people about this!" it would be "I'll make a formal complaint to This guys employer."

Of course the dude had ruled that out by being a little douchebag towards Dixie Carter in the first place, hadn't he.

Now, I'm not saying he isn't still hurting over the loss of his parents. I looked up his twitter accountand noticed that he lost them back in 2005 - I know that I'm still hurting eight months later just as much as I did back in August, because it doesn't really go away. frankly, I think this is why this annoy me - I certainly wouldn't use my Dad's death to get fifteen minutes of fame on wrestling news sites.

Now, a webcomics round-up!

Nerf Now: I love this webcomic, I really do. It's one of the few gaming comics thats stayed true to it's roots, the art is highly entertaining and the references are fun. Unlike Ctrl-Alt-Del for example it hasn;t just descended into the silly escapades of the authors own avatar - primarily because the TF2 characters are already silly. The author is a little bit of a PC-supremacist and seems to swing between amiable guy and the worst kind of gamer nerd. The comic, however is awesome.

As is Manly guys doing Manly things. The adventures of people working in an employment agency for overly-macho video game and movie characters. IT is as awesome as it sounds. Which is fucking very.

Ratfist, however, I could take or leave, to be honest. It's brilliantly drawn, but the writing does nothing for me, and I find the characters bloody irritating.

Fantasy Forays: Dagger-star

2011-02-10T19:34:00.004Z

Time for a review!

Bex's Parents gave her a book a while back, and it sat on the bookshelf for a few weeks until, in a fit of not having anything else to read, I decided to give it a go.

Dagger-Star, by Elizabeth Vaughan, is billed as a "paranormal romance" rather than a fantasy, and it's best to keep that in mind if you decide to take a walk in it's universe, because despite it's action-fantasy stylings, this book is primarily a love story between the mercenary Red Gloves and the somewhat downtrodden Lord of Athelbryght, Josiah. I'm doing the spellings from memory here, so if you happen to come across this review on Google please forgive me.

Okay, I'm going to start with a simple statement. I was dissapointed with this book. Not in the sense that its bad, but in the sense that it simply wasn't developed enough for my tastes. From the outset, we're told of how much of the consummate warrior Red Gloves is. And yet, throughout the whole of the book we're very rarely shown this The action scenes, although well written, are incredibly brief, and that seems to be because Vaughan seems to be far more keen on hitting the proverbial fast-forward button to the next Romance/sex scene. The ultimate battle of the story is almost criminally short - by my reckoning, it spanned approximately one-and-a-half pages of the thre-hundred and twenty three page paperback and, I have to say, was not well written. There are other action scenes in the book, that are actually told from Red's perspective, and it baffles me as to why Vaughan chose to write that scene from Josiah's perspective - considering he was sat on a hill overlooking the battlefield and was completely uninvolved. As I said, the other actions scenes in the book are very well written, but the problem with this that Vaughan is clearly playing to her romance-seeking audience.

And it's a bloody shame, because, aside from the odd overly-repeated phrase ("Claimed his/her mouth with a kiss" was clearly one of those line the author came up with and got into the habit of using) The book is incredibly well written. the dialogue flows naturally, and the characters all have distinct personalities. Josiah and Red themselves are possibly two of the best developed protagonists I've ever read, and its only a pity that more wasn't done with them. The mystery of why Red never takes her gloves off genuinely kept me intrigued right up until the big reveal, and was well plotted when it finally came.

In my personal opinion, the problem with this book isn't Quality, it's quantity. It felt far too often that the story simply didn't have room to breathe, with is a pity because there was so much more that could have been done. The only face-to-face antagonist, Elanore, is in the book for a depressingly short time before getting her arse handed to her and the side characters hardly get a look in on any of the real meat of the story. At the risk of posting spoilers - because I acutally, in any way give the tiniest shit - Gloriana, the girl who takes the throne of Palins at the end of the story could have been given a lot more page time, rather than the next vividly described sex scene between Josiah and Red (And trust me, that isn't spoilers, the pair are at it like rabbits from about a quarter of the way through the book.)

The best way I can think of to address the problems I have with this book is to say that it should probably have been about a hundred pages longer, and those pages should have been devoted to telling the story outside of the Red/Josiah sphere of interaction. But it is a fun and compelling read, especially if you're a sucker for love stories.

Creative Commons Music: The Butcher's Ballroom

2011-01-27T20:47:00.003Z

Well, It's been over a year since my last Creative Common's music review, so I figured I'd throw one up now, and what better one to review than an Album it's taken me almost eighteen months to listen to properly?

The Butcher's Ballroom By Sweden's Diablo Swing Orchestra has sat o at least two MP3 players I own over the past year, and it wasn't untl the last couple of days that I actually sat down and listened to it.

One question sprang immediately to my mind - "Why the hell havent I done this before?"

The Music that DSO brought to me blended a mix of swing, Jazz and Metal to give a fun folky mix that sounds like it would be completely at home on the soundtrack of a Horror movie. Actually, I take it back, this music is far too good for a Horror movie. It genuienly stands on its own as something unique and Eclectic - I@m not the biggest fan of Metal, but once I stopped and listened, Butcher's Ballroom gripped me by the eardrums and refused to let go.

There were, admittedly, some of the songs that caught my attention more than others - Infralove Didn't really tickle me all that much, but Was more than made up for by Balrog Boogie and Velvet Embracer. probably my favourite track though was Rag Doll Physics Which Blended two different Vocal styles into one brilliant whole.

The Band's Wikipedia Entry describes them as Avant-Garde Metal.

I find myself unable to argue with this description.

The Band's Site
---
Downlaod the Album on Jamendo

Force India Take a Bold new step.

2011-01-26T19:50:00.004Z

There has always been a fairly regimented path into a formula one racing seat. Traditionally, a Formula One Driver has come up through the proverbial 'Lower League' Single seater Formula. At the moment, those leagues run approximately as:

Karting
Formula Renault
Formula 3/World Series by Renault/Formula 2
GP3
GP2.

as well as a wealth of other single seater series, like Formula Superleague, Formula Ford, Formula Nippon, and the American single seater series', Indycar Indy Lights etc. Theres never really been much crossover between the different driving series.

Whilst WRC and MotoGP champions Sebastian Loeb and Valentino Rossi have flirted with F1 tests, more often than not, those tests seemed like an indulgence rather than a genuine attempt to shift disciplines - even though Rossi set decently competitive times on his Ferrari test.

So, whilst other news sites are focusing on the fact that Paul Di Resta will be the third British driver on the grid, and that he's been the test Driver for Force India for the last year, I'm choosing to lookat something that I feel is a little bit more significant:

Force India just promoted a Touring Car driver to a potentialy Front-Running F1 seat. Lets face it, Force India have come on leaps and bounds over the last couple of years. They came within inches of claiming thier first win at Spa in 2009, and but of Tonio Liuzzi's somewhat rusty performances in 2010, would probably have convincingly beaten Williams to 6th place in the Constructors title.

But lets be honest, Touring Car championships - even one as Aero Focussed as DTM - is a very different style of driving to Formula One. Whilst Di Resta has a good pedigree of Single Seater racing, he hasn't race a Open-Wheeled car in anger for four years.

What he has been doing is overtaking, fighting for leads and getting door to door in the kind of close racing that only a touring car driver can. Di Resta won the DTM title this year, finishing five points above fellow Brit - and Mclaren test driver - Gary Paffet. These two drivers are back by Mercedes and are learning a kind of driving that GP2 and any other single seater series simply can't teach - as David Coulthard has proven in his own DTM foray and how Johnny Herbert proved in his BTCC debut last year.

GP2 drivers are, supposedly, the future of Formula One - yet the drivers coming through those lower formulae are not necessarily good enough for the big leagues. Hulkenburg, Hamilton, and Timo Glock have done well, But other drivers such as the GP2 front runner Romain Grosjean, Lucas Di Grassi, Nelson Piquet Jnr, Vitaly Petrov (His performance at Abu Dhabi aside) and Karun Chandok, all of whom showed promise in GP2 were barely recognisable in the top tier. Conversely, Kamui Kobayashi, who was at best an also-ran in GP2 has been probably the most exciting F1 driver of 2010.

So, when Paul Di Resta sits in that Force India car on the grid in Bahrain he isn't just representing The British or his team. he's representing a potential new route into Formula one. And lets face it - a touring car driver needs to know how to fight for a position so maybe we'll see a few more fights on the grid come 13th March.

But for now, take a look at what you've got waiting for you:

Mass Effective...

2011-01-25T20:43:00.003Z

I got Mass Effect 2 off my wife for christmas, and after having completed it on saturday night, I started thinking which one of the two games is actually better. Mass Effect is a truly great franchise - a sci-fi opera that is firmly building towards being one of Bioware's great acheivements.

I absolutely loved the first game. the combination of third person action and RPG spanning an entire universe was something that made me love the entire universe and it's characters. The whole series is also wonderfully ambiguous, with a firm way to play the way you want.

But which of the two games is actually better?

Well, the second game ups the action stakes. The tactical system is half arsed in the extreme, with the characters you direct to stay in a position rarely bothering to actually fucking stay there but they certainly fight well. Half the time I found myself hanging back in a support position, allowing the other two members of the party to move forward and assault the enemy. Ironically, when they were out of my control, they often tended to move better tactically and fight back enemies I hadn't even spotted yet.

In the first game, the characters tended to duck straight into cover, and just pop-up shoot at enemies. I suspect this was because of the ammo method in the first game -the weapons had infinite ammo, but tended to 'overheat', which robbed you of being able to fire for a few seconds. The tactics tended to be "pop up, short burst, short bust, overheat, duck back to cover" until you'd killed the enemies. You could use grenades to liven up the proceedings, but it was much slower paced.

In the second game, you can put a LOT more ammo down - but the ammo is limited. Rather than overheating, the guns have "Thermal Clip", that can only take so many shots before it has to be ejected. This makes the gunplay a lot more intense, and forces you to at least occasionally switch weapons. The further firepower supplied by the heavy weapons also gives you a lot more bang for your buck.

The first game used a traditional XP and Levelling RPG system, whereas the second game doles out the level points at regular intervals, forcing you think carefully about the powers and persk you choose. It works, but I did find myself missing the levelling up you get from occasional skirmishes.

On the other hand you didn't really get much incidental fighting outside of missions. Mass Effect was a lot more sprawling than it's sequel with the ability to take a wheeled vehicle - the Mako - down to a lot of the planets and roll around blowing the living shit out of stuff. Of course, one of my freinds pointed out that while Mass effect feels bigger and more open, most of the worlds are pretty much carbon copies of each other with texture changes. The illusion of freedom tended to fall apart whenever you actually went into a building, since they all had exactly the same layout with a few crates moved around. On top of that, the side missions did tend to go be essentially "Go here, shoot this."

Mass Effect 2 is a much tighter game. all of the missions have firm places within the universe and all have a plot that revolves around more than gunning down everything in a ten mile radius.

It's hard to compare the stories, since ME2's story is an extension of ME1's. But I have to say in Saren, the renegade Spectre, Mass Effect has a more compelling antagonist. Mass Effect 2 focus's far more on the wider story of Commander Shephard against the Collectors. You have the Harbringer, the voice of the Reapers - the series' overall megavillains - but other than that theres no-one to directly focus on as a villain.

So, which one is better?

Simple. The one where the refining of the formula finally pays off.

Mass effect 3.

Wow, That sucks.

2011-01-24T20:42:00.002Z

So... Yeah.

Anyone who looks at my profile, two things for you:

1) what the hell is wrong with you, that make you look at my profile? Seriously?

2) the Anti-Cobra blog has vanished. it is gone, Kaput.

and that sucks. I set up that blog a couple of years ago to point out the shenanigans of the Cobra Group. It drew quite a bit of attention, but the time has come that I needed to send it bye bye. There are a few reasons for this, to be honest.

The first is that a good friend - and my darling, beloved wife pointed out that these days, employers have a tendency to google the name of potential employees. Given that I'm looking for a new job these days, so that I can look to move up north to be closer to my Wife's family, thats not somehing I need happening.

The second part is that... Well... I don't really care anymore.

I lost my Dad over the summer. It was very sudden, and very shocking. And frankly, after that I don't really care about the bullshit of a bunch of money-grubbing charlatans who think they're big shots in the world.

Greetings Programs!

2011-01-09T12:43:00.005Z

So, what better way to start the new year than with an entry about a film I've been waiting for for twenty Goddamn years. So...

Tron. Tron tron tron.

What can you say about Tron, really? The original movie, in my opinion, was something special - even though it's very much a product of its time. The idea of being sucked into a computer, competing in games from the inside is one that has been revisited a few times since then.

I mean how many films has Tron arguably influenced, merely in plot terms? The Matrix, Gamer, Virtuosity... The idea of computers being more than glorified number-crunching machines is one that took a bit of getting used to.

Visually, Tron was revolutionary - the first true use of CGI ever used in computer. It's an outright tragedy that it was disqualifed from the special effects oscar category because the committee didn't consider CGI to be 'proper special effects.'

ET won instead, with a glorified puppet show. I hate that little bastard.

So, twenty-eight years later, Tron finally has a sequel. Tron: Legacy. So the beig question is, given that I am big fan of the original, did it's sequel live up to the expectations?

Well... Mostly. Visually, Legacy is the perfect sequel to Tron. The effects are updated, and its the first movie I've seen that didn't rely on 3D as a crutch rather than in integrated part of the movie.

And the Music, my God, the Music. Could anyone but Daft Punk really managed to do this movie. It's as close to perfect a movie score as I've ever heard.

The script... well, the script is no better than I expected. it was fun, but it feels like a setup. I can tell you that I was in no way surprised when I heard that the sequel was already in the works, as the whole of Legacy felt like it was building to that. The story is servicable as an introduction to the dynamics of the grid, but it's very slow in the middle when Sam finally meets up with his father on the outskirts of the computer world. The Initial burst of action on the games is excellent, and the finale is as good as anything I've ever seen. The acting is good, and the script does improve after the inevitable slow patch, but you can't help but feel that the writers could either have done a little bit more, or shortened the movie by about ten minutes.

But it's good. it's damn good. and if they can pull a sequel off, I'll be more than happy to go and see it.

Why England were never going to win the world cup bid.

2010-12-03T20:21:00.002Z

Okay, i'm not usually one to Comment on the immediate news, but I felt I had to throw my hat into the circle regarding the reasons England failed to clinch the rights to host the 2018 FIFA world cup. before anyone thinks I'm just bitter, the following is only my opinion, and I can honestly say I didn't want England to host the World cup. I think hosting the worlds biggest football tournament four years after the Olympics would have been downright asinine, especially given the UK's current economic situation.

To be honest, the crux of the issue is right there. Its the FIFA world cup. A friend of mine at work pointed out to me the other day that every other country in the world names it's Football association after the country.

Englands is simply "The FA."

It's fairly indisputable that England is the home of the modern game of football, yet despite having pretty much the strongest bid on the table, we were passed over in favour of Russia, a country that is still recovering from years of abuse at the hands of the social regime.

Now, I'm not going to accuse Russia of bribery or anything so crass. even if they did, it's irrelevant, because England were never going to win that bid. Because FIFA does not like England.

When FIFA look at England, they see two things:- they see the hooligan nation of the seventies and they see the single most successful football league in the world.

In the first case, they aren't willng to accept that we aren't truly a hooligan nation anymore. for the last few major events, England fans have been repeatedly praised for their well-behaved nature. Sure, it can't have helped that we had trouble over the Midlands derby THE NIGH BEFORE THE VOTE, but even so, that sort of event is now far more common in the European leagues. And yet, everyone still acts like English fans are just a bunch of thuggish troublemakers looking to ruin every tournament we go to.

If you ask any person around the room who the biggest football/soccer club in the world is, they will inevitably mention the name "Manchester United." What FIFA wants, to be honest, is for you to say "Real Madrid" or "Juventus." They want those big medditerranean countries to be seen as the heartland of football, not some little island up in the middle of nowhere.

The premier league attracts the most money in the world. and FIFA don't. lets face it, historically, England has never been a popular country amongst the international community. At the end of the day, we used to run roughshod over most of these guys for whatever we wanted, and that still doesn't sit well.

It doesn't help, of course that we constantly act as if we are the most important nation in the world to football. The constant air of superiority was such that a lot of people assumed we had the bid won before we'd even started.

FIFA don't like us. Plain and simple.

Now, I know a lot of people want to blame the Panorama sting for the way the voting went. FIFA are certianly trying to infer that. But imagine that rather than the Mondya before the vote, Panorama was coming out this monday. How would that look?

I'll tell you how it would look. It would look like England was throwing one monumental hissy fit after losing the vote. The only way the BBC could come out of that with any Journalistic integrity was to broadcast it before the vote. The timing could have been much much better, but in my heart of hearts, I don't beleive it changed the outcome.

Becuase to put a World cup on in England would have shown FIFA up. after years of trying, unsuccessfully, to marginalise the English game's importance, it would have acknowledged that England is simply one of the best places to hold the event. That would have put too much power and prestige into the FA's hands, power and prestige that the FA would have used to railroad FIFA any chance they got. The fact is, the English game does not need to power boost that the World Cup gives, and to get it would have made an already powerful league virtually unparalleled in terms of sway.

And that was never going to happen.

NaNoWriMo - The Endgame.

2010-11-29T22:39:00.002Z

Well, I started this month with the intention of writing a 50000 word Novel. It was calle the Longest day, and it was the tale of four racing drivers battling their way in their respective classes towards the win.

How did I do? Well...

Yup, 50,022 words later, I finally crossed the border and was declared an official winner of my first NaNoWriMo. Have I finished my novel? No. I've still got six chapters to go. I've then got to edit, pad, and pimp it out to make it into something worth at least self-publishing.

Watch this space, Mofos. right now, though, I'm gonna pass out. Davif, Jaime, John and Tom can wait until the morning at least.

Just to say...

2010-11-11T22:19:00.002Z

Trying to make a pitstop sound exciting in a fictional story is very difficult. Turst me on this.

My NaNoWriMo is EATING MY BRAIN.

18,722 words down. 31,278 to go. I'll get a decent entry up soon. I don't just like to write random shit.

this entry nonewithstanding.

The Fellowship of the Ring (Are Dicks.)

2010-10-29T21:57:00.006+01:00

I have a secret shame that its taken me a long time t admit: Up until today, I did not own my own copy of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I just never got around to buying it. Thankfully, I rectified that today by getting the Special Edition Box Set on the cheap. Of course, that means I get to watch these epics all over again.

As I sat through Fellowship, I came to a conclusion:

The Fellowship of the Ring Are a bunch of utter Cocks.

To Explain:

Gimli: Racist against Elves. Also loud enough to get Caught by elves in the woods of Lothlorien. Also, goes out of his way to flirt with Galadriel. In front of her Husband. DICK.

Legolas: Racist against dwarves. Also an absolute dick because during the council he goes out of his way to be a shit to Boromir by essentially going "Oh, by the way, the ranger there? The guy with the long brown hair who you spoke to in the sword room earlier? He's your king, and you should just blindly do whatever he says even though you only met him an hour ago and he's essentially gonna take all the power your family have away from you. Oh and I'm gonna tell you all about despite him clearly stating he doesn't want to be the fucking king. yeah. Fuck you." DICK

Boromir: Do I really need to explain this one? Seriously? Sure he was getting influenced by the ring and the need to live up to his father, but seriously, Boromir spends most of his time whining like a little girl with a skinned knee and trying to eye-fuck the ring whenever it appears. Also, the whole "Trying to Mug Frodo for the Ring" thing. DICK.

Merry and Pippin: Sure, Boromir is a dick, but at the end, he sacrifices himself so that Merry and Pippin can get away, and bravely falls in their defence while they run... wait, you mean they don't run? They stand there lobbing rocks at the Goddamn Uruk-Hai, then get caught, thus negating Boromir's sacrifice and making him die for nothing? DICKS.

Frodo: Lets see, Mr Baggins. What did Gandalf specifically tell you not to do? Was it put on the ring? What do you do the instant you first get a fucking chance? Is it put on the ring? Of course it is. Also, how many times did Gandalf advise against going into the Mines of Moria? And which route do you instantly pick given half a chance? Also, after being told by Aragorn to run for it you then stand on the shore of the river cradling the fucking ring for twenty minutes while they're all getting their arses kicked so you can get away - at the end of the movie, you've only made it across the river when they catch up. Also, you nearly let Sam drown, you douche. DICK.

Aragorn: You nearly made it, heir of Isildur. you nearly survived this movie without being a dick. Then, the instant Boromir died, you tossed his body over a waterfall. but you didn't just do that, did you? No, you stole his stuff first. don't think we didn't notice those pretty new bracers you've got their, Mr Strider. DICK.

Gandalf: Oh, where to fucking start? This is an extensive list:

1) "Keep the ring in your undefended house Frodo, while I go and search out whether or not it's the one ring, in full knowledge that Sauron is searching for it."

2) "Despite having the ability to summon Giant Eagles, We still have to walk all the Goddamn way to Mordor" (Better know as the 'how it should have ended' dilemma.)

3) Here's how the conversation should have gone, Gandalf:

"We should go through the mines of Moria!"

"No, there's a Balrog in there."

"What's a Balrog?"

"A Giant Demon Made of Shadow and Flame."

"Pass of Rohan it is! Thanks Gandalf!"

How the conversation went:

"We Need to get off this mountain! We should go through the Mines of Moria!"

"We'll let the Ring Bearer Decide!"

COLLOSAL DICK.

You may have noticed Sam is not on here. Thats because he isn't a dick. At Any point. Someone made it at least.

Yes, I'm going to try and write this...

2010-10-15T20:21:00.003+01:00

so, Its NaNoWriMo next month... And this is what I'm doing:

The Longest Day:

The Season has been long, the accidents have been brutal, the cars have worked long and hard, and the drivers even harder.
Now its come down to this – the final, most prestigious race of the international endurance championship: The Baker 24 hours. Mentally taxing, physically draining, the high-speed Baker Autodrome has claimed both careers and lives over the years with 5 miles of undulating turns and brutally fast straights.
Seeking to tame this beast of a track, four drivers challenge each of the different classes. Each has their rivals both in and out of their teams. Each will face the challenge of the Autodrome. Each will have to use all their racing ability to make it through their longest day.

Main Characters:

David Miller: GBR

Age: 38

Class: Prototype

Team: Miller-Davis Autosport (I)

Co-Drivers: Mark Davis (GBR), Richard Davis (GBR)

Car: DTR-001 prototype.

Bio:

This is David Miller's tenth, and final, Baker-24. He has been a racing driver for nearly 20 years, and has dabbled with all forms of racing, from NASCAR to Formula one. The very definition of a gentleman racer, the one thing that has eluded Miller is the International Endurance crown – and the win in its illustrious 24 hour finale. He has entered the Baker-24 as the overall points leader, by a narrow 8 point margin over Yves Amrhein, the talented lead driver of the Bugatti Works team.

In his privateer team, Miller is running the exceptional diesel DTR-001 prototype. A thoroughbred racer, the DTR has already guaranteed David the independents crown, and its unique aerodynamic package has put Miller on the verge of his first Baker-24 win. But the car, after a season's worth of running, is fragile, and Miller – having already decided this will be his last year of racing – is obsessed with getting the overall win. With no spare chassis and with everything to play for, David and his two co drivers, Richard Davis and his brother Mark will have to give everything for the overall win.

---

Jaime Willis: USA

Age: 23

Class: GT1

Team: Aston Martin Racing USA (W)

Car: Aston Martin DBR9

Co-Drivers: Marcus Brauer (GER), Sebastian Fournier (FRA)

Bio:

Despite a firm racing pedigree and a lot of experience in Lower formulae, Jaime's entrance to the Baker-24 has been treated coolly by the racing community. Looked upon as a PR stunt in the IES, her presence in the race is looked upon as little more than a pretty face to put on the billboards and flyers. Jaime is determined to prove herself as a firm contender in the GT1 class, but with the cameras zoning in on her and her celebrity lifestyle gaining her a reputation as a party girl, Jaime has to gain the trust of her team before she can hope to push her unfamiliar Aston Martin DBR9 to the head of the GT1 class. She has not competed in the rest of the IES season, and is purely in for the Baker-24 crown.

A TV presenter for a sports station in the states, Jaime's presence in motorsport is looked upon with a mixture of contempt and amusement, but her ability is not to be underestimated, with several National GT wins already under her belt. Despite this, very few in the Autodrome's paddock think she is deserving of a Works seat with the Aston USA team.

---

John Cox (GBR)

Age: 30

Class: GT2

Team: BMM Racing (I)

Car: Lotus Exige 240

Co-Drivers: Tomas Acklin (SWI), Daisuke Yakamoto (JAP)

Bio:

Cox has pushed himself to the very edge this season, and it shows. Despite his stirling efforts, his team currently languishes 15th in the standings. With no chance of taking the class title this seasons, British-Malaysian Motorsports teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, with only one hope of salvation – the sponsorship and prize money that comes with winning the Baker-24.

Cox has been a Driving force behind developing the Lotus Exige as a GT2 class racer, but in its first season, the car has been off the pace until the last few races. In the penultimate event at the Circuit De Catalunya, Cox was able to take the class win through the car finally coming alive. His greatest hope is that the ability to save the soft-compound tyres the Exige showed at Catalunya will carry over to Baker.

---

Tom Morris (GBR)

Age: 25

Class: Touring

Team: Green Flag Motorsport UK (I)

Car: Ford Focus ST

Co-Drivers: Daniel Montgomery (GBR), Jason Kane (ROI)

Bio:

Tom Morris has risen through the ranks of Touring Car Races for several years, taking his first British Touring Cars Title last year before making the jump to a Touring Class seat in the IES. His unique Hybrid Powered Focus ST tore into the ranks, but technical issues with it's KERS system have prevented it from dominating the class as much as its pre-season form indicated.

Morris has struggled to meet the demands of the endurance style in his first seasons, and has been forced to learn how to manage his tyres long term mid race, as opposed to the three quick sprints of a touring car race day. However, Green Flag has brought in two experienced drivers to back up his Baker-24 challenge. But the 24 hour race can make or break a drivers career and the rumour is that if Morris doesn't have a strong showing he could be finding himself back in the lower leagues come next season.

THis car is the Sex.

2010-05-26T20:07:00.000+01:00

Lewis and Jenson test the new McLaren road car:

Best. Finish. Ever.

2010-02-21T21:34:00.003Z

I'm on a wee bit of an indycar kick at the moment:

Indycar Just went Unique...

2010-02-12T19:18:00.008Z

I like Indycar. As open-wheel race series go, its a remarkably un-pretentious league. a mix of street races and ovals, with its one big feature event, the Indy 500. I even like the design of Indycars, although, I've got to admit that they look like rejected designs for F1 cars.

That is, Until now.

You see, the IRL has been holding a competition between three design teams - Dallara, Swift, and DeltaWing Racing.

Up first in this Petrol-powered Triplethreat: Dallara

Now, Dallara have entered three designs, two of them look very Traditional Indycar:

However, their most intriguing one is this one - a much more futuristic design with what looks like a heavy wing at the back:

The front wing also looks very solid and chunky on this design, presumably to deal with paint-trading fun. The rear wheels also look to be mostly enclosed just in front of the rear wing, making the car less likely to go airborne in a wheel-to-wheel clash. a good design, and I've got a feeling this is one of the ones the IRL will look at the most.

Next up, we have Swift's design...

...Which is apparently funded by Wayne Enterprises. Its a good looker, but I'm not sure how much of it would translate to an actual car, especially that front wing. I just don't see how much aero-grip thats going to offer this car. In this design, the rear wheel is also more open, giving more risk of the cars going skywards, and as discussed in a previous entry, racecars are not meant to fly.

Finally, though, we have the most interesting, and certainly the most controversial design being pitched - and ironically, its also the one that is closest to being a working goddamn car: the DeltaWing.

That car looks epic. It's designed to be hugely low on drag, and has completely enclosed wheels to prevent any flying issues. Its also, apparently, the one most of the drivers on the grid like best.

Personally, I hink theres one, blinding obvious way to decided between the three - Race the fuckers! Three designs fighting it out for the right to be made the reigning indycar!

Do it, IRL. You know you want to.

The Elephant in the Room...

2010-02-09T20:35:00.001Z

One of the things that has always truly, truly irritated me is the immediate response of the the media to blame violence on video games.

Let me paint a picture for you: I am 24. I have been playing violent games since the age of ten. I have shot Nazis, zombies, girls boys, and occasionally, the odd shark. Sometimes I run them over in a car.

I have never once thought it would be okay for me to go and shoot someone in real life, and violence on the news has always made me feel bad.

Yet tonight, my wife is watching an episode of “Jo Frost's Extreme Parental Guidance” that says that playing a violent video game for 20 goddamn minutes desensitises kids to violent footage from the news.

Their evidence for this? That the kids heart-rates stayed the same, rather than rising in response to it. I call bullshit.

What they have proven there is that kids don't react in a physical manner. Because they have been Prepared for the worst.

However, research has shown that kids who play video games have improved reactions and observational skills. Bet that wont be mentioned, hmm?

Of course, the amount and content of games played by kids is... of course... DOWN TO THE FUCKING PARENTS.

Jesus Christ. Take some fucking responsibility.

This rant brought to you by Videogamers for parents paying attention to their goddamn kids.

Of course, there would be an advantage to stopping playing videogames. It would stop them ruining my left 4 dead 2 sessions.

The Tank KO'd my update...

2010-01-22T20:10:00.001Z

Yeah, its been a last time since my last blog entry. Left 4 Dead 2 has been eating my time.

...And will continue to do so. See ya!

-Bendana

Why i hate the Internet.

2010-01-01T20:37:00.002Z

I just watched that last ever David Tennant Episode of Doctor Who. It was awesome.

I then made the mistake of looking at the BBC Have your Say boards. much less awesome.

Some samples. All names have been removed to disguise the idiocy:

---
The script writers need to be told that their stories will be rejected if Deux ex Machina is used to solve plots.

And please - no more running around screaming for supposed suspense or drawn out scenes attempting to give it gravitas. It is all so light-weight and badly written.

A true reflection of British society; dumbed down, celebrity driven and all gloss no substance.
---

Because Doctor Who is meant to relfect the current nature of the British people. Next series - the Doctor gets into trouble after claiming expenses in the gallifreyan parliament for a doghouse for K-9!

---
i really can't believe the writers of doctor who completely cut out the one and only sexy david tenant like who does that? i mean really people what the hell are you thinking man? love you David....gone but never forgotten.....you will always have a special place in my heart even though you won't be on my tv screen anymore
---

Y'know, David Tennant hasn't actually fucking DIED. but according to you, he should play the Doctor, and only the doctor. For ever and ever amen.

---
Dr Who is supposed to be contentious,challenging, frightening, boundary breaking, but above all else SCARY and FUN.
Instead we got yet another bog standard appaulingly produced BBC Sci Fi drama like Survivors, Day Of The Triffids etc that was multi cultural, politically correct, inclusive, diverse and basically not up to the job. David Tennant is a truly great actor who was ruined with really poor script writing.

It was East Enders on a bad day.
---

This one REALLY pissed me off. Because according to this guy, Doctor Who should only feature White people. Talking to White people.

Doctor Who - Bought to you by the BNP.

---
In the old days, Dr Who changed appearance with a few lights and out of focus shoyts.... now we have explosions and fires and breaking glass.... why? Don't the people who make these programmes understand that we've already seen it. Again. And agian. And again...
---

It's called Drama:

Drama - Noun - any situation or series of events having vivid, emotional, conflicting, or striking interest or results: the drama of a murder trial.

---

And thats quite enough stupidity for one day.

FIRST!!!!

2010-01-01T11:07:00.001Z

And a happy new year to all.

It's all over bar the shouting.

2009-12-20T19:43:00.004Z

A historic Xmas number one was hit today. Rage against the Machine - Killing in the Name is the UK's Chart-Topper for christmas week. I just want to list the reasons this campaign was so amazing:

1) The immense feeling of camraderie that a lot of the people on the group feel. At the end of the day, there was no single release, there was no Huge hype machine.

2) This is the first EVER Xmas number one based entirely on digital downloads. That, in itself, is hugely significant.

3) We did this. Us, The People, gave the world an Unexpected Christmas number one. And that is the most significant thing of all.

I'm going to post this one last time to the Rage group. I want everyone who comes here to comment below. Make your voice heard. I want this blog post to be a record of everyone I spoke to, spammed and ranted with on those rage boards. I want this to be our names inscribed in stone. Lets be heard one last time.

Let the party begin.

-Bendana.

An Open Letter to Simon Cowell

2009-12-16T20:01:00.004Z

Dear Mr Cowell,

I, Ben Myatt, have been a fan of music for many years. I grew up listening to the sounds of Genesis and Jeff Wayne's war of the worlds. I chilled to Rick Wakeman and rocked out to Nirvana. I am the man who actually bought and B*witched album, and who listens to the mellow Punk sounds of the Bouncing Souls. I own albums by both Robbie Williams and Vanessa Mae. I even owned the So Solid Crew album.

The point of my above statement is to illustrate that I am not in opposition to you for the music you release, or for the image you project.

I am in opposition to you because you, Mr Cowell, have ruined the Christmas Number One.

I remember, as recently as 2004, the Christmas number one race was exciting. it was something to look forward to. That year, Band Aid 20 gained the number one spot. The year before, Gary Jules had beaten the Darkness with Mad World.

For the last four years, every Christmas number one has been an X Factor winner. For the last four years, A reality TV show has decided the most coveted singles number one of the year.

So Mr Cowell, I want you to understand the reasons I joined the Rage Against The Machine for Christmas number one group. And I want you to understand the reasons why, last night, I went onto 7Digital and Bought a Mp3 of "Killing in the Name of."

I need you to realise, Mr Cowell, that despite your opinion of the campaign as "cynical and Silly" this campaign is not a personal attack against you, Joe McElderry or even the X-Factor.

This is a campaign about free will. You have gone on record saying that you "Did us all a favour by Killing the Christmas number one."

You really didn't, believe me. I have been a music fan for ninety percent of my existence on this planet, and the Christmas number one has always been something special. Despite your opinion, we don't all think that every Christmas number one was great, but at least there was variety! At least, when Bob The Builder hit number one, it meant that something different was at the top of the charts.

The same cannot be said of the last four years. For the last four years we have had one weak reality-show-produced singer after another. You say that the Christmas number one isn't important.

We, the people, respectfully disagree.

Whatever the different opinions regarding the song, the fact is, that for the first time in five year, the Christmas number one battle has captured the imaginations of the country. If you don't believe me, the fact that "Killing in the Name of" has been outselling "The Climb" speaks for itself.

This campaign has been featured on News shows up and down the country, It has been featured in National newspapers. It has trended on twitter and crashed the servers at facebook. This campaign has lit up the music industry in a way the X Factor never has. As a result of this campaign, RATM's guitarist, Tom Morello, will be giving a portion of his proceeds to a UK charity

At The end of the day, even if the song doesn't get to number one, the message will have been sent. You can no longer have things your own way. We will fight for our right to party to the music we like.

Lets not make any mistakes, you profit tremendously from that “Unimportant” Christmas number one. That's fair enough. That's your job. But, despite the fact RATM are on your the same label as Joe McElderry, you'll have to forgive us if we contribute to your profits in a different way from the norm. You'll also have to forgive us for raising over £40,000 for Shelter.

At the end of the day, we wish you no ill will. But you tell us, every year with your “cynical and silly” scheduling of the X Factor to guarantee that “unimportant” Christmas number one. What to Buy, and when to buy it.

To quote a line:

“Fuck You, We Won't Do As You Tell Us.”

IMPORTANT LINKS:

Shelter.

The Facebook Campaign Group.

RATM Download Links:

DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT 6 OR 7 TIMES...IT'LL JUST GET ANNULLED IN THE CHART.

7DIGITAL - £1.19P - track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-7digital

AMAZON - 29p - yes it will count
htpp://http://bit.ly/rage-amazon

TUNETRIBE - 49P - track #2 - LIVE version (yes it counts)
http://bit.ly/ratm-tunetribe

TESCO DIGITAL - 67p - track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-tesco

HMV.COM - 79p (careful - this is track #1)
http://hmv.com/hmvweb
http://bit.ly/ratm-hmv

PLAY.COM - 70p - it's the only track on the page
http://bit.ly/ratm-play

WE7 - £1.07p - track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-we7

iTUNES - 99p - track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-itunes

An Electric F1 car? MADNESS.

2009-12-14T23:27:00.004Z

I came up with today's rant after a talk with my Environmental-former-Greenpeace-Activist Wife. Blame her.

The Rules for Next season of Formula 1 have been announced for some time now, and key on the list is the fact that refueling has been banned for the 2010 season. Now, as seen in the previous couple of posts – and to Kimi Räikönnen's detriment – refueling can have some fairly dire results when it comes to accidents.

However, for me at least, the ban on refueling has a far more significant knock-on.

In these days of climate change, global warming and mass panic over the fact that the Earth's polar ice-caps may indeed vanish in the near future, the Ban on refueling can be taken to represent the fact that Formula 1 is finally moving towards a more environmentally friendly method of racing.

F1 has long been criticised for its environmental image. When Honda used the “EarthDreams” livery, they were criticised for 'Greenwashing' their image. Bridgestone were accused of similar crimes when they declared that the green stripes on their tires represented their support for the FIA's “Make Cars Green” campaign.

A nifty trick. In the first case, the Honda RA107 got five miles to the gallon and produced over 138 tonnes of carbon per race. In the second, Bridgestone pushed for the “two-compound” rule – forcing the cars to use multiple sets of tires per race, as opposed to 2005 when they used one set per race. The sheer amount of rubber destroyed in these tires is borderline obscene.

Although, admittedly, the RA107 livery was more of a marketing move than an attempt to make the cars more environmentally friendly, the new rules of F1 are a positive step in the right direction.

While the cars, for at least one season, may be using just as much fuel as before, the nifty trick regarding this is that, initially, the cars will have to compromise in order to carry that amount of petrol.

The knock-on effect being that the cars will have to become more fuel efficient. Through this, we could see the re-introduction of the KERS system. For those of you unfamiliar with F1, the KERS system harvested the thermal energy created by braking the car and put into a battery, this could then be used to give the car a temporary 60 BHP boost in power. Now, that system, for 2009, was abominably expensive, with all the teams dropping it for 2010. However, with fuel space at a premium – none of the teams can afford to compromise their aerodynamics for fuel – Surely it is only a matter of time until KERS makes a comeback to give those cars an edge around the track.

All of this leads to less fuel being used. Those cars have to become more fuel efficient, while staying competitive. The team that makes the most fuel-efficient car will use less fuel. That makes them able to run at lighter weights. That makes them faster.

So what we'll have is a new F1 arms war. In order to make the faster car, they have to make them better at using less fuel. So the next stage is to use less tires. The simple solution here is to go back to using only one set per race. Now the nifty thing about the slick tires the cars have gone back to using is that the pressure is more evenly distributed over their surface – meaning that they break down at a slightly slower rate than the grooved tires that were used in 2005. Of course, this all revolves around the “two-compounds” rule being revoked. Bridgestone make an awful lot of money out of that rule.

However, after 2010, Bridgestone will no longer be supplying the tires for Formula 1 Competition. So, whoever comes in has the opportunity to make a significant environmental impact.

So, what am I building up to here? Well, to illustrate, I want to introduce you to an electric car:

What...? No, not that one! That car blows!

I meant This One:

Now that Sexy beast of a car is the Lightning GT. And it is a fully electric car with a range of 188 miles. It uses KERS to keep its batteries charged up. The Lithium-Titanate batteries have a lifetime expectancy of twelve years.

Words fail to describe how much I want one. And at £120,000, its about 35 times cheaper than the average F1 car as well.

Now, This gives me hope that we will see a fully electric Formula 1 car within my lifetime. And not just an electric F1 car, a competitive electric F1 car. And the first time one of those near-silent electric F1 cars wins a race, the other teams with their Gas-Guzzling cars are going to look at it and go “wait a minute...”

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is where F1 will finally make the step to not only being the worlds Premier Motorsport, but the worlds most environmentally friendly as well.

And that's just what the sport, the fans, and the world need to see.

-Bendana

A new Bendanarama feature.

2009-12-09T23:13:00.003Z

Since I tend to trawl the internet for random clips, I figured I'd begin a new, and highly entertaining feature on this blog:

Things Racing Cars are NEVER meant to do!

THis week, I went on the internet and found these clips, illustrating that Racecars, deapite having wings, are NEVER meant to FLY.

Firstly, from the Formula 3 Macau Grand Prix, earlier this year, Wayne Boyd Shows his piloting skills. Unfortunately, he's still in a Hitech Racing F3 when he does:

And Our classic clip, from ten years ago, at the Le Mans 24 Hours, Peter Dumbreck decided to give his Mercedes-Benz CLR-GT1 a rather unorthodox mid-Track Aerodynamics test:

----

And thus, as we can see above, Racing cars are NEVER meant to fly.

My Ultimate Racing Game.

2009-12-05T12:54:00.003Z

Well, the new F1 game is out for the Wii. Seeing as I don't HAVE a Wii, I'm still playing F1 2005 (and getting absolutely trounced) on the PS2. And since I havent done a blog entry in a while - Primarily because it wasn't until earlier in the week that the Left 4 Dead 2 demo expired - I started thinking about the features I would want in my ideal racing game.

I was very Bored.

I will also note that most of these are probably impossible with todays technology. But its my fantasy, so fuck you.

---
BEN'S IDEAL RACING GAME!

1) A Race Director mode that doesnt suck.

For those of you who've played Gran Turismo 4, you'll get this one. the Race director mode is completely devoid of atmosphere, consisting of a screen with statistics. Give us an interactive pitwall. It'd be awesome! Plus, imagine the ramifications for multiplayer - You could have teams of three or four, depending on the amount of drivers, with one guy Controlling all the strategy from the pitwall, and the others driving. It would also be awesome to be able to turn around and see the pit stop go ahead in real time from the team principal's perspective. With voice comms, this would be a truly epic way to play.

2) Full race grids for online games.

Come on, this can't be that difficult, can it? I don't want to race 6 people online, I want to race 23 other cars.

3) Qualifying and practice online.

Again, while its possible to have a full enght race online - I can do it on Toca Race driver 3 - generally, there arent any qualifying or practice sessions. Why the fuck not? I guarantee you, F1 Fans dont want to be dropped on some random point on the grid, they want to try and earn pole position. Similarly, if they have to set the car up, they need to know that those settings work.

4) Fuel incidents, and realisitic damage.

Did you watch the Brazillian Grand Prix? Did you see what happened to Kimi Raikonnen? If not, allow me to refresh your memory:

A similar incident occurred to Tony Kanaan at the Indycar race in Edmonton:

Now, given the level of today's technology, surely it cant be too difficult to create fuel incidents like that? it could even be a mini game - F1-05 already features interactive pitstops. Just imagine, trying to get the fuelhose off without burning off the drivers face. And imagine if a car had a fuel leak on track. Your chasing another car. he suddenly starts to slow down, then WOOMPH. Fireball. And then you have to avoid your face getting burnt off. Fun for the whole family.

And whilst were at it, can developers please find a balance between INVINCIBLE CAR OF ADAMANTIUM and EXPLODES IF YOU BREATHE AT IT. F1 cars may be delicate, but they can take more of a beating than Toca 3 allows. Similarly, They are not so tought that you can drive them straight into a wall witbh no damage, as F1-05 allows. Now, I've looked at the fottage of recent games, and they tend to lean towards Explodey. According to most games, bigger damage is better.

No. Just stop. Realisim, please.

5) A balance between hardcore sim and arcade racer.

Admittedly, games are getting better at this, but we do need to find that balance. It needs to have some semblance of a challenge. also, AI drivers that don't stick like glue to the racing line would be great. kthnxbai.

6) AI cars that actually retire, and Safety Cars.

Please. No more yellow flags forever and no more AI cars that react like a brick wall. Have them experience some severe damage, and occasionally bow out of the race. if theres a severe pile up on lap one, have a safety car some out while the debris is cleared in real time. In fact, animate the marshalls clearing the track - it gives the more sociopathic gamers among us something to aim for.

7) Updateable cars.

Make a game with the base model cars for that current year. Then allow people to upgrade them throughout the season. let them put different things on and see what effect it would have. it would be FUCKING AWESOME.

So yeah, thats my ideal game. Its probably not physically possible.

But I'd buy it, and I'm willing to bet, with some of these features, a good portion of you would too.

Left 4 Dead 2: The Demo.

2009-11-08T22:47:00.010Z

I never played Left 4 Dead. I wanted too. I even downloaded the demo. But I never got round to playing it, and unfortunately, it had a time expiration on it. I'm not that big of an online gamer, but seeing how this game is something of a phenomenon, when I saw that the demo for L4D2 had been released, I jumped at it.

And Jumped.

And carried on jumping.

Lets just say that Left 4 Dead 2 is very atmospheric. The demo runs through the first two chapters of "The Parish" Campaign - The waterfront and the park, respectively. Set in New Orleans, the Demo starts on the jetty at the docks. Apologies for the quality of screenshot, The game autmoatically selected the best settings for performance, and I don't have a high-end machine.

Anyways. After the ship's captain has dropped you off, its up to you to make your way up that ramp into New Orleans proper. And almost immediately, you encounter infected. Now, the basic level infect is pretty much cannon fodder at the start. There's a weapon spawn right at the start, and The Director - Thats the name of the AI that controls the action - saw fit to leave a shotgun and a machete right there from the off. So, on this playthrough, I had the immediate oppurtunity to start shooting some zombies in the head.
The shotgun, as was immediatley apparent, is a very satisfying weapon. A couple of shots, even glancing ones, can put Horde infected down. Heads Be a-poppin. Of course, the big weapon update for L4D2 is the inclusion of Melee weapons. Such as the machete.

I Like my Machete.
I Liked it a lot.

In fact, I like it so much, I named it Celeste. I sleep with it lying next to me. Just in case.

I've only really enountered one or two games before where Melee combat was this satisfying, and both of those games revlved around Melee combat - Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Oblivion. But the Melee weapons in L4D2 are really satisfying to use. Theres a genuinely chunky feel to hitting the zombies with the melee weapons. Hell, on the first online playthrough I did, I fought my way out of a corner with just the machete - the Horde was upon me, and I did not have time to reload.

The waterfront section was mainly confined streets, funneling the infected towards you. Of course, theres always the odd super-infected, like the spitter. This lovely lady spits Acid. yes, Acid. She is a pain in the arse. And on the playthrough I did to get these screenshots, she was also the one I encountered the most.

Things really started heating up when I got onto the second, chapter, however, and started making my way through the park. Because who should I encounter, but a new variant of an old favourite from the first game: The Wandering Witch.

yes, she's back, ladies and gentlemen, the Bane of survivors everywhere. But now, she doesn't just sit down crying like an emo bitch waiting for her next Linkin park gig, oh no. Now, she wanders around, just asking to stumble into the crossfire of the survivors.

Like this: I took down a normal zombie with my shotgun.

Just as a witch wandered past the statue in the background.
Which resulting in this:

OH SHI-

Thankfully, I survived the attack, and got back to it, working my way through to the demo's Crescendo event: A desperate rush to a tower to shut off an alarm that was attracting every zombie within 2 square miles. My ammo was starting to runa bit low at this point.

Thankfully, Celeste came to my rescue:

...A Lot:
...Okay, I just really like hitting things with machetes, okay? Jeez. anyways, after that alarm was silenced, I made may way out to the bus shelter near the last stretch of the demo. seeing that the courtyard was full of zombies, I fired a burst from my recently acquired AK47.

Of course, I'd failed to take into account that, from a distance, the Wandering Witch looks like a regular zombie stumbling around.

MOTHER FUC-

In terms of whether or not I'll be getting this game: Yes. Even though my computer can't really do it justice, I loved every minute of this game. The Director really gave the game an edge over the competition: Every time I played through the demo, it went differently. At one point I even just camped in position for a while - and the AI started sending super-infected after super-infected after me. The charger is especially a pain - as the name suggests, it charges you into the wall and then pounds you on the floor. The Jockey is more irritating than dangerous, although in big-horde situations it can cause problems. The most tactical one - thinking ahead to the Versus mode in the full release - is probably going to be the spitter. The acid caused genuine problems for me throughout the demo, and the spread area is an utter git in choke points and narrow confines.

My steam ID is Bmyatt_uk. Feel free to join me.

-Bendanarama

ROFL.

2009-10-27T19:51:00.001Z

To the guy who turned up on my blog looking for "porno hiht horse:"

Guess you were REALLY looking in the wrong place, huh?

Jenson Button - Champion in waiting?

2009-10-05T21:32:00.004+01:00

Okay, so I don't often do sports analysis, but I wanted to point out some things after listening and reading last weeks buildup to the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

Last week was a good example of how NOT to be influenced by the media hype surrounding Jenson Button at the moment. A huge amount of the media focus last week was focussed on how button, by gaining five points more than his teammate Rubens Barrichello.

Now, that sounds like an easy task, but in truth it wasn't so, and for several of the following reasons:

1) The BGP-001 was never going to be the strongest car at Suzuka. It's a low downforce circuit, and a much colder circuits than those white-and-green cars like. A brief explanation on the cold: F1 cars are all about grip. you can have the best engine and aerodynamics package in the world, but if you can't put all that power and aero performance through those four pieces of rubber on the track it doesn't mean a thing. And one of the things that affects that is tyre temperature. The warmer your tyres are, the more grip you have.

And the Brawn GP cars very much like the warmer weather. The car itself is very easy on the tyres - its why they were so strong on the circuits in hugely hot weather - but when they're on a circuit where they need to get the heat into those tyres by force, they just cant seem to do it.

What this adds up to is a huge drop of pace on the initial part of the race. It wasn't until much later on when Button began to equal the pace of the race leaders - and in a sport where the spread between the racing pack's lap times is three-and-a-half seconds, that isn't nearly enough.

2) Five points is a very big gap to maintain. Given that Button and Barrichello - the two main championship runners (even after Vettel took a chunk out of button this week) are driving the same car, it's an incredibly difficult task for Button to Gain five points over Barrichello. Only in couple of races have the cars been more than 2 places apart. With Barrichello on a resurgence since the European Grand Prix in Valencia, beating him out by five points was going to be near impossible. As it was, Button Prevented Rubens from getting more than a point over him.

3) The Red Bulls were going to be strong at Suzuka. Its the kind of circuit the RB5 excels on, and with Vettel setting pole on qualifying, the one worry is that he's put himself into a championship position that Button and Rubens both need to defend.

All of this, combined with a poor start off the line, led to Jenson Button NOT winning the title in Japan. But what it made much more likely was Button, like Lewis Hamilton last year, winning the title at the Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Here's my thoughts on this:

1) Brazil is a Hot circuit. Barring the patchy rain we saw in the season finale last year - which handed Hamilton the title, as Timo Glock forgot to chenge his Toyota's tyres to the Intermediate weather tyres - the weather will be somewhere in the 30 degree mark in full sunshine, with 18 degrees or so for clouds. Wet weather changes any formula one race, but lets go with the theory of it being dry for now. all this equals - yes, you guessed it - Higher tyre temperatures.

2) The track is smooth - making it a faster circuit for those, like Button, who are easier on the tyres.

3) The RB5, though arguably the best track in the field, has suffered from reliability problems on hotter tracks all season. if Vettel struggles with eavena fraction of these, it makes it a two horse race between Button and Barrichello.

4) Button is currently 14 points ahead of Barrichello and 16 ahead of Vettel. At Suzuka, to become champion, Button had to GAIN five points over Barrichello. at Interlagos, all Button neds to do is remain WITHIN four points of Barrichello and within six points of Vettel.

If Jenson goes into the last race with a ten point lead, then he is the champion, because all either Barrichello or Vettel can do is tie on points with him. And if that Happens, it comes down to the amount of Grand Prix's won this season. Thanks to Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen's resurgences, Rubens has won two Grand Prix with two left, Vettel has won Three.

Even if they tie on points, Jenson Button has won six Grand Prix with two left to take. Neither of the other contenders can win on Race Titles. They HAVE to outscore Button, and if Button has proved anything this season, its that he can defend that lead.

I just watched the replay of the F1 forum on BBC online, and Martin Brundle just pointed out that all Button needs to do is finish fourth at Brazil and he is guaranteed the championship.

He may not even have to do that.

---
-Bendana.
---

On a similar note, Congratulations to Colin Turkington on Winning the BTCC Championship.

A Genuine Rant.

2009-09-28T22:47:00.002+01:00

Watching tv this evening, I see an advert for a product.

"But Ben," I hear you cry, "Tv is the natural place for advertising, unless you were watching the BBC, in which case it would be something for an oddity."

Yes, I fully appreciate that TV is the place for advertising, invisible blog reader people, but is TV really the place for advertising this?

Look. Be shocked.

Are.

You.

FUCKING.

HAVING.

A.

LAUGH.

HONEST TO GOD, WHAT KIND OF UTTER MORON DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO BUY CALORIE FUCKING FREE WATER?

Seriously, are you taking the fucking piss?

For God's sake.

I swear, if this company acheives success with this shit, the world will be over. It's all gone. You blew it up, you madmen!

The Rise and Fall of CGI.

2009-09-21T20:12:00.002+01:00

I picked Batman Begins at Asda at the weekend, and as I was watching it on Saturday night, I remembered a story that Michael Caine related about the films development. He was watching a panoramic shot circling Batman, who was standing high on a gargoyle near the top of a skyscraper. He turned to CHris Nolan - the director - and said "How did you get CGI that good?"

To which Nolan replied:

"It's not CGI. We've got a stuntman standing up on the building while a helicopter circles him."

Now, the purpose of this story is not to relate the sheer coolness of the Batman Begins franchise - although its succeeded in making Batman cool again after Joel Shumacher's debacles.

The purpose of this little anecdote is to illustrate the attitude towards CGI in the film industry today. Where once CGI was a novelty, it quickly became a crutch.

Probably the origin of the CGI boom can be traced back to 1996's Independence Day. Whilst CGI had certainly been used before this point, the sheer scale of its usage began to really take hold after this film. After all, who needs deep plots when you can blow up the white house on a weekly basis? Not to say I didn't enjoy ID4 - its a great film, and still holds its own today. But it set a trend where rather than merely using CGI to enhance a film, filmmakers started basing their films around CGI.

More followed. The disasterous 1998 Godzilla remake made the legendary king of the monsters into a Tuna Eating CGI Iguana.

More and more, the marketing of films seemed to revolve around the special effects rather than any actualy plot content. As I previously stated, CGI became a crutch to lean on rather than a tool to be used.

-Yes, I know I'm not giving many examples. Its been a long day.

And somewhere along the line, it began to lose the sheen it had gained from ID4. When you start seeing cities destroyed in every mother movie, soon enough it begains to wear thin. Gradually, CGI fell out of fashion with filmmakers - the notable exception being comic book movies, which, due to their nature, had to rely on the technological breakthroughs that CGI had brought.

Another contribution to CGI's fall was the more smooth integration of CGI into the movie. As it became more difficult to distinguish the computer generated elements from the film, its rapidly began to lose its allure. Its use was assumed, as illustrated by Caine's story, but it was no longer the focus. Gradually movies began to feature less about the special effects.

In some cases it became anathema to even point them out - more marketing effort was put into the fact that films weren't using CGI than those that were.

Perhaps CGI has finally ound its role as a filmmaking tool rather than the focus of movies.

---
This pointless rant bought to you by:
-Bendana
---

Creative Commons Music Week - The Finale.

2009-09-13T23:29:00.002+01:00

So, kiddies, what have we learned this week?

Well, I suppose the basic lesson is that theres a hell of a lot of good music out there - 4 out of 5 positive albums cant be wrong, and given that all of them were chosen completely at random, its a good sign of a trend.

The creative commons movement is a triumph for freedom of music. In the past week, I've downloaded five albums, completely legally, without having to worry about the government knocking on my flat door and telling me I've been naughty.

What Jamendo, as a site, proves is that there is a way to challenge the monopoly that the music houses have over the industry. If more and more people show that they're willing to listen to free music, it'll mean that eventually, the music houses will be forced to cater to our tastes.

By supporting - and voluntarily donating to - creative commons bands, you can make them successful completely independently of the major music publishers.

Is this a pipe dream? Ten years ago, I wuld have said so. But ten years ago, wehadn't yet had the advent of the Mp3. These days, music shits just as much digitally as it does on CDs. iTunes is one of the biggest music retailers on the planet.

For the sake of struggling artists everywhere, we need to show that we wont just listen to the music they tell us to listen to. Lady Gaga? no thanks, I'll take Steven Dunston. Good Charlotte? I'd talk Talco over them any day.

There are plenty of good bands out there. Take the time to look. Downloading doesnt have to mean you're getting your music illegally.

Jamendo.com. Enjoy.

Creative commons Music: The Dark Symphony

2009-09-13T20:17:00.003+01:00

Belated review is Belated.

OKay, newage instrumental is DEEPLY not my gig. Never interested me. but in the process of picking a random album, I decided to download Roger Subirana's The Dark Symphony, and I wound up being pleasantly surprised.

Thankfully, instrumental music doesnt have any language barriers, so I was free to enjoy this spanish entry without having to worry about those issues, but to be honest, the album didnt have a particularly spanish flavour to it. It's most definitely newage.

One of the things you'll find in Tourist attractions in the UK - specifically their giftshops - are wooden cabinets full of newage music. normaly, these have Twee titles like "Whale song" and "Earth Magic."

Which is probably why a title like The Dark Symphony caught my eye in the first place. It does have a distinctly different feel to it than most other new age music Largely piano based, with hints of pan-pipes, the elements of standard newage are certainly there, but the general tone of the album sets it apart from the usual tourist attraction crap.

On an entirely irrelevant note, at one point my sister was convinced those cabinets were the start of an alien invasion - followed by their more successful weapon of Sudoku puzzles.

Back to the music, Dark Symphony is thoroughly entertaining music. While its perfectly nice to relax to, Tracks like Ancestral Voices also have a good beat to them that makes that worth the effort of getting past your prejudices.

Its good chillout music, and thankfully, a highpoint to end my creative commons music week on.

Download Roger Subirana: The Dark Symphony.

Roger Subirana's Website.

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-Bendanan
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blllllaaaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh....

2009-09-11T23:28:00.003+01:00

Haven't had a chance to listen to Friday's album yet. review will be posted tomorrow. Sorryz.

Creative Commons Music: Unfinished Business

2009-09-10T22:47:00.002+01:00

Well, I suppose the run couldn't last forever. After three days of excellent albums that at least kept me vaguely interested, I finally came across one that did precisely nothing for me.

The shock really comes from the fact that Unfinished Business by the band of the same name is a band that splits itself between Lisbon and England, thus meaning that the music was at least in my native language.

I'm not saying that the music is bad. Technically its at least accomplished, and the blues sound is at least bearable.

But then thats the problem. Unfinished Business Isn't bad. It's merely Indifferent. With this album, its like the band decided it was going to lump every generic sound of 80's rock onto and album and let it go at that. Theres no real flavour to this music, no real verve. In the end its just... unintersting.

The lead singer sounds like he's trying to be Sting. The music sounds like its trying to be Genesis. The whole album comes across as the generic soundtrack of every eighties detective show you remember.

Every song sounds like something you've heard before - and not in a good way.

Download Unfinished Business.

The band's site.

---
-Bendana
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Creative Commons music: Combat Circus

2009-09-09T22:26:00.003+01:00

Well, The more I download from Jamendo, the more I notice that the music I'm downloading is starting to take on very distinctively mediterranean flavour. Today's entry is one coming from the sunny reaches of Italy - Where the F1 heads this weekend for the Monza Grand Prix, incidentally - and is straying back into my more favoured tastes of Ska-punk.

Talco's entry to the Arena, Combat Circus, draws on some very familiar ground as its basis. Ska has been around for a long time, really, and its a very good mould to follow.

I have to admit, it was with some trepidation that I settled in to listen to an all-Italian album. This is something a lot of people will probably be familiar with - its very difficult to listen to music, even music styles you like, if they arent in a language you don't understand. That said, after the first couple of tracks, I felt firmly like I was in familiar territory. The sound of Brass instruments and shredding guitars greeted me like a warm fire in a log cabin.

A log cabin that was steadily burning to the ground, amidst the tattered remains of a nuclear stricken world...

...Okay, that metaphor was stretched a bit, but that fact that Combat Circus is a fairly comfortable listen for anyone into punk is something that deserves saying, even if the language barrier is in the way. After reading the reviews, I found that the Album apparently has an Anti-Fascist lean to it.

Whilst I didn't get that listening to the songs the first time round, with the tone of songs like Testamento Di Un Buffone and the cover of the Anti-Fascist classic Bella Ciao mena that once you know its there the sentiment comes across pretty clearly.

End of the day, the language barrier on the songs is somethign that can be broken down witha bit of concentration, and what you're left with is a very good punk album, That's definitley staying on my music files for a long time.

Download Talco: Combat Circus

Talco's Band site.

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-Bendana
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Creative Commons Music: The Ugly Army.

2009-09-08T23:41:00.000+01:00

I hereby declare this week Bendanarama's Creative Commons Music week! A new Album review every day!

I'll admit something now - I try not to read the genres that are listed when I download a full album from Jamendo. Its difficult, since they're fairly prominent, but it means that I can generally form my own opinions.

Of course, sometimes I cant help it, and when I saw Fresh Body Shop's The Ugly Army describe as "Punk Rock Electro", I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this French rock act.

The initial impression wasn't that great, but I warmed to the album fairly quickly. any trepidation I felt was purely due to the fact that it wasn't like any of the music I usually listen to, and thats something that required me to step out of my brit-indie-US-punk comfort zone.

The Ugly Army has a hell of a beat to it. ANd it's also a hell of an individualistic beat. In terms of Genre, I wouldn't have described it as Punk Rock Electro. I would have gone with "Punk Jazz Fusion" or alternatively, "Hyperspace Wizard Rock."

But then, I'm a bit wierd.

I have to admit, to me personally, some of the songs are a little hit and miss. Ones like Never end up like this and Anythign But You are ones I really enjoyed, but the more Electro sounding ones like My Artificial Sun didn't really do all that much for me.

If I'm honest, I enjoyed most of the album, but the odd couple of tracks that didn't really push my buttons left it feeling a little flat. But, if you like something a little different, its a nice little album, with a very distinctive French flavour to it.

Download Fresh Body Shop: The Ugly Army

Fresh Body Shop's Blogsite.

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-Bendana
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Creative Commons music: Hymns about her

2009-09-07T21:05:00.000+01:00

One of the wonders of using Frostwire is the (relatively) recently added Frostclick feature, that gives you access to tones of free music, completely legally, under the creative commons licensing system.

Generally, I have ignored most of the splash ads that have come up but for some reason, I decided to click on the album cover for Steven Dunston's Hymns about her.

Never have I less regretted a decision. Steven Dunston's album is exactly the kind of Jazzy Piano music I tend to listen for relaxation, and in this case, it is exceptionally good Jazzy piano. Dunston handles both the strings, piano and vocals, and gives a virtuoso performance.

But what you shouldn;t assume is that this a one-note performance. Whilst songs like Tonic and Gin - my personal favourite - and Northern Star are accomplished love songs, others like Lyle Love Song and California have a more poppy, cigarette-dangling-from-the-mouth feel.

But despite this, it is defintely the traditional jazz feel that benefits more from Dunston's vocal style. Whilst Lyle Love Song isn't bad, its more country-ish air doesn't take as much from the vocal style as the slower, more jazzy numbers. Particularly good examples include "When I was with you" and Man of faith.

If you like, even occasionally, to relax to music, then this album is for you. its an isntant calmer - valium, in music form, if you will. Sit back and chill. As I said, my personal favourite is Tonic and Gin. The album also caters to one of my favourite tastes in music - songs that tell a story. The is Pour-yourself-a-drink-and-chill music at its finest.

Get it now.

Links:

Get the Album: Steven Dunston - Hymns about her.

Steven Dunston's Site and Blog.

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-Bendana.
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Ben Watches the Watchmen. Perv.

2009-08-18T21:06:00.000+01:00

Watchmen was always, in fairness, going the be an incredibly difficult comic to film. It wasn't exactly built for it, from the start. The comic itself is incredibly slowly paced - to its advantage - which, even with a three hour film, was going to be exceptionally difficult to translate.

To Watchmen's credit, it works very well. combining almost graphic-for-graphic images from the comics with the film. It's also carried by very strong performances from the actors. For a guy whose face you rarely see, Jackie Earle Haley gives an amazing performance as Rorschach. His vocal style and different levels of physical acting made the character come across as a personality of its own.

It was definitely a good idea of Zack Snyder to cast relative unknowns for the parts - it allowed the characters to speak for themselves. Personally I didn't like 300, Snyder's previous effort. I thought that it was vastly overdone, and in all fairness, would have been all of ten minutes long if it hadn't been filmed almost entirely in slomo.

But in reproducing most of the comment almost shot for shot in Watchmen, Snyder manages to retain most of the Atmosphere from the comics. Admittedly he has to change some of the plot elements - the Cthulhu-esque monster from the end of the book would have just looked stupid come the end of the movie.

...The books been out for 23 years. If you claim I'm spoiling it, fuck yourself. Sideways.

There are other elements of the story different from the Books. The overall tone of the ending is a lot... happier. For lack of a better term.

The Problem with reviewing it, is that theres no way to detail any of the plot without really spoiling anything else. So I'll stick to what I know...

See Beginner's rule handbook #2: "Why Re-invent the Wheel."

...Ze Action in Watchmen, It be fucking awesome. you do get a good amount of Gunplay in some scenes - primarily flashbacks to the days of the Comedian - But the Hand to hand scenes are utterly fantastic. If you read my "Top-Ten Fight scenes" from a few entries back, you'll have noticed that I have a bit of a thing for realistic fight scenes. Watchmen somehow manages to do bigger-than-real fightscenes without actually losing the realism of the movie. Its also illustrated by the fact that each character has a very distinctive individual style, from Nite Owl II's more heavy handed kickboxing/bodyblock style to Ozymandias' uniquely defensive counter-fighting technique, it contrives to give each fight a very individual flavour and makes for very compelling fights - something 300 distinctly lacked.

Watchmen Is, truth be told, one of the best superhero movies I've seen, even when all the characters are substantially less than super.

Until World War 3, I remain,

-Bendana.

My take on the NHS-USA Debate.

2009-08-16T11:58:00.000+01:00

So, American Republicans...

You believe that a system where peple have to pay through the nose for life saving operations, where if they cant pay, they cant afford to have a baby and where people spend years paying off the result of injuries because the insurance companies who have been taking their money suddenly refuse to pay and where peple are chucked out of hospitals simply because their insurance wont sustain them staying any longer...

is superior to a system where...

I can get medication with no insurance for my damaged achilles tendon for a flat fee of £7.00, my wife can get her monthly doses of medication for her asthma on a flat fee of £100 a year, and where, whilst there are some waiting times, they are not months and months for life-saving operations (and no, dickheads, we dont have death panels either) and where, If i'm in hospital, I can stay for as long as I need to without worrying that I'm suddenly not going to be able to pay for it.

...

...on a personal note, I have a friend in the states who struggles to afford her Asthma inhaler because unlike over here, where my wife gets hers mostly for free, it costs her $300 an inhaler. If Barack Obama does nothing else, establishing this health system is what the USA needs.

Harry Potter And the Grim Grim Dark Grimness.

2009-08-10T19:54:00.000+01:00

So, after a few days of my wifes nagging, We finally went to see Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince.

And you know what? I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, this may seem rather insignificant to you, but as my wife could probably tell you, I've always been rather indifferent to the Harry Potter movies. Not that I dont enjoy them, I've just never been particularly bothered about actually seeing them. I liked Order of the Phoenix, but again, I was very indifferent to actually going out and watching them. The same again was something I felt for Half-Blood Prince.

Now, the Book of the film was the only one in the series I found truly problematic. it wasnt bad, but It felt as if the entire thing was merely a setup for Deathly Hallows. To be honest, the last few books felt a little flabby compared to the rest, with multiple chapters of Harry being a whiny little bitch.

Daniel Radcliffe's performance in the film, however, takes a slightly different tone. After the rather miserable opening of Order of the Phoenix, admittedly, leading from the death of Cederic in Goblet of fire set the tone for the whole movie, leading up to the death of Sirius at the end of the movie.

...Look, the book came out in 2003, and the film in 2007. If you claim I'm spoiling it for you, fuck yourself. Seriously.

Anyways, Radcliffe's performance is the true sign that this young actor has truly ound his feet in the part. In the first few movies I was genuinely underwhelmed with his performances - even making allowance for his age - but in Half-Blood Prince he genuinely makes the part his own, bringing a certain zest to the performance that he previously lacked. And it really worked. His personality leapt off the screen in this film, bringing fantastic life to the movie. Similarly, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson have matured into their roles, allowing the chemistry that the three have shown in interviews to finally come through on screen. Given that the film is far more concerned with the relationships between the characters than those that have come previously, it was just what they needed.

But thats not to say there isn't plenty of action. There is, but it's far mor subtle than in the film's predecessors. There are no really huge shootouts, no extended battles, which is good because there isnt any way this film could have done those sequences without either looking tame next to the last film or overshadowing the climax of the next (two?) films. The attempted attacks on Dumbeldore - especially the scene when a cursed Necklace takes hold, are fairly nerve-wracking.

And all of lends to the general feeling of darkness about this movie. This is not Shiney-Happy Potter. This is the culmination of all the grim imagery thats influenced the last three films, and its all a buildup to the Final sunrise of the last Film. It's a genuine credit to JK Rowling that most of the imagery in the film can be lifted directly from the book. Her Novels are incredibly visual in their writing, and that's one of the things that makes this film what it is: an amazing visual experience.

I love the 2009 formula one cars...

2009-07-02T20:24:00.000+01:00

I'm a pretty big fan of Formula One. I'm a fan of motorsport in general, but Formula one has a special place in my heart - its one of the first sports that my wife and I truly love to watch together. We even watch the Qualifying on the Saturday before the actual race - sometimes we even find it more exciting than the actual race!

From the moment Fleetwood Mac's Bassline from The Chain starts to play, I'm hooked. I've always been a fan of Jenson Button, and the fact that his season is going so well is awesome to me.

So recently, I started following a dedicated Formula One blog, F1 Fanatic. This place seems to cotton onto a lot of the big news first, and is a lot easier to digest than my other source of F1 news, the BBC sports site.

I glanced on today, and noticed that a new article was up. The site had recently held a poll, asking what F1 cars readers felt were the best looking. I voted for the 2009 Iterations of the cars. I love the look of the new F1 cars - Unlike the technology infested things of recent years, that looked more like stubby fighter aircraft than cars, the new generation look like Racers.

Yet the fanbase have voted, overwhelmingly that the 2009 cars are the ugliest cars they've ever seen.

Seriously? I call bullshit. While I agree with a lot of what the article says - the problem of getting the cars to actually, y'know, race still hasn't been solved - I think those new cars are absolutely gorgeous. Seriously, look at the BGP-001:

Now, that is one good looking car. It looks like it can race, rather than looking like a Picasso painting has vomited all over an IndyCar. in opposition to that, the cars that were voted the best looking were the cars from the 2000's. Most notably, the cars from 2007 were prminently featured as examples:

Seriously? I mean, Jesus, nostalgia is one thing, but that car is beyond fucking ugly. I know it was an excellent piece of engineering, but aesthetically, it's far from pleasing. Even as recently as 2008, the cars were so squat and ugly that they just looked like insects to me. The latest Generation of F1 cars look like cars.

But, at the end of the day, Aesthetics isn't really the point of F1, (I really wanted to give those 2009 cars some love though) and as I said, the problems of making the cars race against each other is still there. at the highers speeds, the only place F1 seems to become a passing race sport is at the back of the grid - where the cars are so bad they have to fight for every position.

It still makes me giggle that the world Champion is in one of those poor cars. I think it will be good for Hamilton, who seemed to have the world at his feet far too quickly. In the meantime, the German Grand Prix at the Legendary Nurburgring is a week on Sunday, and once again, I'm in work for qualifying.

God... Damn.

...Tell me that shit don't look good.

My Top ten fight scenes of all time... thus far.

2009-06-30T19:46:00.000+01:00

well, after whining like a little emo bitch for the better part of the day, I thought I'd try writing something constructive.

of course, I cant really be arsed, so what you're getting is a list of my top ten movie fight scenes instead.

Now, The ground rules:

1) I have to have suffered through the entire movie at some point, not just the fight in question.

2) you may notice that the Rocky fights are not included. in this case, i decided it has to be combat fights rather than sporting fights. and the one from Rocky five sucks donkey balls.

3) These must be fist fights. Minimal Weaponry (or in the case of some, weaponry in the main context of the fights) onyl allowed.

LET US PROCEED.

-----------------------------

NUMBER 10: Cloud vs Kadaj, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.
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It may surprise you that I prefer this fight to the one immediately following it, The Cloud vs Sephiroth fight that makes up the film's proverbial "Main event." Theres one very simple reason for that: the Cloud vs Kadaj fight is the fight the film has been building towards for the entire run. Kadaj has been the main antagonist, tormenting Cloud at every turn. While Sephiroth is a legend, the Sephy-CLoud fight feels more like fanservice than an actual fight with any build to it. On top of that, The Kadaj fight feels much more realistic than the Sephiroth fight. More sword fighting, and less DBZ style flying through the air.
---

NUMBER 9: Asuka vs the MP Evas, End of Evangelion.
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An odd choice, but one that gets me every time. In the buildup to this fight, I genuinely shed tears as Asuka cowers in her Evangelion-02 at the bottom of the Lake, chanting "I dont want to die" over and over. In the background, her mothers voice starts to speak, telling her she isnt alone, and when she realizes, it all breaks loose, leading to Eva-02 taking out 10 or so Mass production Evas. It's a controlled piece of Brutality on the part of the Evangelion animators, and amazingly effective as Eva-02's battery finally dies and the MP-Evas take their gory revenge.

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NUMBER 8: Iron Man vs Iron Monger. Iron Man.
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Another one of my favourite fight scenes, and one that for the the type of film it is, is far more realistic than it should be. The Movie battle between Iron man and Iron Monger most certainly has its roots in the comics, but in terms of the capabilities that have been set in the films for both suits, this is a good, uneven fight that Iron Man wins by grit and Determination alone.

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NUMBER 7: Neo vs Agent Smith, The Matrix
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Possibly a controversial choice at this stage, this fight was revolutionary in its time, with the use of wirework and bullet time making this a never before spectacle of Kung-Fu action. add to that the clear amount of actual fight time both Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving get, and you get a brilliant cinematic fight that has, unfortunately, been diluted by time and imitation.

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NUMBER 6: Obi-Wan vs Darth Vader, Revenge of the Sith.
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In terms of Jedi Battles, up until this point the Star Wars Prequels has been noticeably lacking. Sure, we had Yoda vs Dooku in Attack of the clones, but that came across more as a comedy fight than an epic moment. But this, the batle we had all been waiting for, Vader and Kenobi in their primes, was an end to end lightsaber duel across the molten lava surface of the planet, Mustapha. Even the ending meets with Approval from me, as Kenobi remains a teacher telling Anakin not to violate a basic combat principle and attack the high ground.

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NUMBER 5: The Bride vs O-Ren Ishii, Kill bill Part one.
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Before this scene came about in cinema, very few people outside the select clique of fans had seen a true samurai style duel on the big screen. The two former deadly vipers have a dramatic duel in the snow outside the house of blue leaves. the scene is also a crutial one of redemption for Thurman's Bride, as her skill is mocked by O-Ren for her perceived lack of skill, and apologises as she realises she has been outclassed. I remember sitting with a couple of guys who didnt get shy she did this until it was pointed out to them, and both suddenly grinned and nodded their heads in agreement, despite having previously thought it was a bit stupid. The fight itself is, very simp,ly, a triumph of substance over style.

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NUMBER 4: Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds vs The Operative, Serenity.
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Okay, I'll be the first to admit, this one is pure Browncoat-Bias on my part. I love Firefly, I love Serenity, and I have honest-to-god Man love for Malcolm Reynolds. that said, none of this takes away from the fact that this is a singularly brutal, dramatic fight on the edge of a precipice in the depths of Mr Universe's planet, as Mal tries to transmit the message that shows the alliance to be guilty of creating the deadly Reavers. Mal eventually wins the fight via an incapacitating move and stroke of luck - The cluster of Nerves the operative attacks to paralyse his victims had been torn out during the unification wars.

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NUMBER 3: Daniel vs Chozen, The Karate Kid Part two.

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Now, I bet you're looking at this one in a spot of disbelief, arent you? But in terms of Drama towards a climactic fight, the first two Karate Kid films were masterclasses in Building up a battle. The mo-holds-barred Karate fight between the Delinquent, Villainous Chozen and Daniel is the perfect synchronisation of light and dark with back and forth action giving the battle an excellent atmosphere. unlike the restrained atmosphere of the All-Valley championship fight in the first movie, this is the first fight where you genuinely feel Daniel is threatened by an opponent, as Chozen genuinely tries to kill him through the battle. All in all, the return to the Tournament style in the third movie felt like a severe letdown after this brutal challenge.

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NUMBER 2: Jake vs Ryan, Never Back Down.

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I know, you guys have got to be scared that Never Back Down is making it this high onto, well, any list ever. But if there is one thing that this movie does, its fighting, and the final battle betweem Jake Tyler and Ryan McCarthy is no Exception. More importantly, in a cinematic world where films are increasingly relying on wirework and CGI to create a fight, this is a brilliant piece of MMA choreography that breaks the mould of what films are currently doing. While Never Back Down itself hasn't necessarily beena great hit, the minimal use of CGI and the various fight styles shown - the fight moves from stand up, to ground based submission and Strikes to Wrestling and back to stand up again - make this a compelling and brutal battle, and probably the first time ever a mid-fight epiphany has come whilst the hero is locked in a guillotine choke.

Fun fact: Cam Gigandet has won the Fight of the Year award two years running: firstly for this fight, and secondly for the piece-of-shit fight at the End of the abomination before Literature and Filmmaking that is Twilight.

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BEFORE NUMBER ONE! SOME NOTABLE MENTIONS!

These are the ones that didn't make it into the main list due to various reasons:

Spike Spiegel vs Vincent Volaju - Cowboy Bebop the movie: A classic MArtial arts battle, in animated form!

Sean Thornton vs Will Danaher - The Quiet Man: John Wayne and Victor Mclagen make this fight a supreme work of Comedy and Action.

Aragorn vs Lurtz - The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring: One of the best none-samurai sword films committed to film, spoiled only by the short length.

Balian vs Guy - Kingdom of Heaven: an excellent sword fight, omitted from this list because for some unknown reason, the fight onyl appears on the fucking special edition. good call on this one, Hollywood Studio Heads. Really.

Douchebags.

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AND NOW, THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BE WAITING FOR:

NUMBER ONE:

Riggs vs Mr Joshua: Lethal Weapon.

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If Never Back Down Broke the mould for modern Cinematic fights, Lethal Weapon took a Sledgehammer to the Clay they made the Mould out of. Riggs vs Joshua was a cinema MMA fight before Hollywood even knew what the fuck MMA Was, combining stand up grappling and clinch boxing with brutal ground and pound, an attempted drowning and finally a choke-out victory via traingle choke for Riggs. Bearing in mind that the first UFC event, which really brought Mixed Martial Arts to the fore, wasn't even a twinkle in Helio Gracie's eye at this point - it occured six years later - the use of Jiu-Jitsu to finish a cinema fight was practically unheard of, and the brutal beating both men suffer under the spray of a busted fire hydrant is why I've chosen this as my number-one cinema fight.

But dont believe me? watch for yourself.

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Dont agree with my choices? Have your own favourite fights list? comment and let me know! For now, I remain,

-Bendana.

An Update.

2009-06-30T18:50:00.000+01:00

it looks like my HTC is completely fucked. Its not even turning on now. but on the upside, I have £20 birthday money in my pocket from work and half a cake in the fridge!

I am having an Utter Shitter of a day.

2009-06-30T08:46:00.000+01:00

and its not even 9am yet!

So, last night, my beloved HTC touch decided it didnt like being violated by its phone charger anymore, and refused to charge to it. Now, I thought I had an extra Tenner in my account, so I found a place on Ebay that does desktop chargers for the batteries for £2.95.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, that tenner I had was an uncleared payment to something else, so Bye-Bye charger, until at least friday.

which means I'm stuck using our Backup mobile.

Which is a pink clamshell Alcatel.

Yeah, this is going well.

oh, and I was off sick yesterday. the chinese I had for my Birthday dinner gave me food poisoning.

and we just got a £91 bill for the sky.

And my wife's away until thursday.

I'll post something constructive when life doesn't suck.

A bit of a ramble.

2009-06-26T20:44:00.000+01:00

I hate to be a buzzkill...

But surely, there is some other news in the goddamn world than Michael Jackson dying? I respect the guy for the media Icon that he is, but I honestly beleive that if Iran dropped a nuke right now it would only appear in the tick bar at the bottom of the screen.

anyways, I'm not going to do a rant about Michael Jackson, because frankly, its uncalled for.

----

I've been working on my novel for about a year now, and to be honest, its been a real struggle at times. Writing a novel is a long, difficult process for me, especially a fantasy novel. to be honest, I bounce between bouts of loving writing so much I cant wait to get home and do the next page and weeks of staring at the screen, unable to think of anything to write.

My target is 300 pages - slightly longer than the first novel of my Idol, David Eddings. I'm just about up to thirty.

but as I said, its a slow process for me.

---

If, like me, you're a bit of a classic game fan, the site goodoldgames.com is absolutely fantastic. I picked up Freespace 2 for about £3. today, as a birthday presnt, I picked up Comanche Vs Havok and The Guild Gold Edition for less than a tenner.

seriously, check this shit out.

http://www.goodoldgames.com

---

New online Game Addiction!

http://batracer.com/

Online Race Team management for the win!

also, if you play the Half Life 2 Mod Insurgency:

come give me a bullet or two to the head on the 24/7 ins_sinjar server. its all good.

-Bendanarama

Dun Dun Duuuuuuuuuuuuun....

2009-06-24T22:17:00.000+01:00

My Mum got me a singularly awesome present for my birthday this year:

Is that a martian fighting machine, or are you just pleased to see me?

yeah, I got to go see The War of the Worlds at the Echo Arena, and it was fucking IMMENSE!

erm.....psyche?

2009-04-10T18:24:00.000+01:00

didnt get to go see dragonball after all. sorry, no review. possibly wednesday.

-Bendana

We all knew it was going to happen.

2009-04-09T21:04:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow, me and the missus are going to go and see Dragonball Evolution. After which, I will post the first of what will undoubtedly be many shite film reviews.

-Bendana.

Epic Value.

2009-04-06T20:23:00.000+01:00

If you like epic movies, and you've got a spare fiver, get yo' ass down to Asda. The Wife and I picked up the 4-disc boxset of Kindom Of Heaven for a fiver.
And its the good version - the directors cut. Y'know, with characterisation.

Hells yeah.

2009-04-02T21:06:00.000+01:00

I WANT ONE.

Riding my High Horse till it drops.

2009-03-31T21:12:00.001+01:00

In the background to this post, my Wife is watching "The Sex Education Show vs Pornography."

And its pissing me right the fuck off.

Now, its very difficult to get on your high horse in defense of Porn. Just ask Jacqui Smith. So I'm not going to try. The reason this show is pissing me off is the pure and simple Soapbox anti-sex attitude of the presenter, Anna Richardson.

Now, I'm all for having a frank discussion with teenagers about the fantasy stylings of Porn vs the realities of sexual relationships. However, Ms Richardson seems more concerned with an out and out indictment of anyone who seems to actually want to enoy their sex life.

To Illustrate: at the moment she is going around a high street, seeing how many sexual products she can find. The implication she seems to be making is that it's easy for teenagers to walk in and buy a Cock ring or Lube.

Her exact words:

"Ooh look, a cock ring, in between the Milk and the Crumpets."

...I have to do this.

Now, I've worked retail. Back in my Halcyon Livejournal days, I used to rant extensively about my time working in a One-Stop (a small brand owned by Tescos.)

Now, we weren't high street exactly, but we certainly were a point of contact for people doing their shopping. One of my favourite stories of the place is from when a guy came in to return a pornographic magazine he'd purchased. His big issue was that the free DVD wasn't in the package. He had waited until I, the Male member of staff, was alone on the counter to try and return it. Unfortunately for him, being a lowly customer assistant, I didnt have the authorisation to retake the magazine. I had to call Zoe, the shift manager, to come and do it. Cue embarrassment and giggles.

(on a side not, my wife just pointed out that while Ms Richardson is commenting on how the oversized Penises in porn damages boys self esteem, she just happilly humiliated a boy whose voice hadnt broken in the audience.)

Anyways, the point of the One-stop story is not that porn is freely available and able to be viewed, by anyone on the high street, because it isnt. These days, every single porn mag in any chain shop comes in a sealed plastic silver packet, that hides all the content on the cover except the title.

The same applies to cock rings, lube, and hell, even condoms. These days, its easier for a kid to go to their school nurse to get condoms than it is to get them at the shop. As for toys and sex aids, You have to be over eighteen to buy these products. given the level of security at most supermarkets these days, a fourteen year isnt simply going to go in, pick up a cock ring and walk out again. It simply is not going to happen.

These toys are for consenting adults. Ms Richardson seems to think that people should still have to go into seedy little sex shops in order to get something to liven up their intimate time.

She really goes out of her way to make the Ann Summers chain look seedier than it is. I've been inside an Ann Summers shop. Its actually a pretty nice, Sterile atmosphere. Ms Richardson tries to give the impression that the instant you walk in you Are surrounded by Sex Toys.

Again, this isnt the case. From experience, you have to walk to the back of the shop, to an area enclosed in such a way that any items it contains cannot be seen from the front of the store. Hell, even in "Seedy Sex Shops", the glass at the front is completely Opaque, and covered in warnings about the content contained within. It certainly isnt as simple as Ms Richardson makes it out.

On another note as to why this show annoys me: There is a clear bias over where the shows discussions of sex with the teenagers are going. All of the boys are portrayed as horny little bastards who just want to be pornstars - any time a myth Ms Richardson wants to debunk is shown, its always a boy making the comment. Whenever a talking head of one of the girls has been shown, it is purely to indict the boys of their proverbial crimes. All this to illustrate "How Porn is Damaging our kids!"

The third note is her little campaign against the internet. Yes, the Internet is a hive of porn. It IS ridiculously easy for children to find porn on the internet. Hell, at the age of 14, I ran up a £200 bill by downloading porn Dialers on my laptop.

However, the solution is NOT going to PC World and demanding they have the Internet Filters enabled on their computers from the off. Sorry, like, I'm an adult male - if I buy a new PC, why should I have to prove I'm over 18 in order to view any site I want?

The Solution is NOT going to BT and demanding why they arent preventing the evil Internets from having porn on them.

The Solution is The Parents who are oh-so-shocked by this material pulling their fingers out of their backsides and ACTIVATING the Filters. It should be noted that PC worlds PCs do come installed with parental controls - that the parents have to then set up. BT's Broadband services DOES come with parental controls and password security to prevent your little darlings getting their grubby little mitts on material they shouldn't.

But as Parents, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure they are active. So Mr Dad, hows about you put down Beer number four and go have a chat with little Bobby about the material they might find and about sex in general. Mrs Mum, hows about you drag yourself away from Eastenders or the latest issue of OK magazine and set the goddamn password on the internet to something only YOU know. Activate those parental filters whilst your at it, and make sure that even if your kids are in the internet, you know they can't access this material.

And if you're seriously so worried about internet porn, hows about you make sure your children DONT HAVE UNSUPERVISED ACCESS TO THE INTERNET.

And yes. It simply is possible.

Robin Hood and TNA Impact!

2009-03-29T20:20:00.000+01:00

I entered into watching last nights TV with a certain amount of trepidation. The Two major shows I was watching for the evening were Robin Hood and TNA Impact. In the case of Robin Hood, I was worried because at the end of the last series, they killed off Lady Marian out in the Holy land, and to be honest, how can you have Robin without Marian?

Fortunately, in the first episode, this wasnt even a factor. The Anger both Guy of Gisbourne - who had also loved Marian and consequently murdered her for her love of Robin - and Robin feel towards each other spilled over into utter hatred, leading to an Awesome brawl/duel at the start of the episode.

The whole theme of the episode was Robin re-discovering his purpose as Robin Hood - aided by Friar tuck, who apparently knows kung fu.

Hey, works for me. The whole episode pretty much revolved around action. admittedly it had the same old "Merry man/men gets captured, tortured then rescued by Robin" plot, but it was still pretty fucking entertaining, and a good mindless opener to a good, mindless series.

TNA however, still has its share of problems. that said, last nights episode was pretty damn good. Generally, the wrestling tends to be Overbooked on a TNA show, with too much interference and too little quality, however last night worked really well. admittedly, the Suicide/Kiyoshi X-Division Title match was way too short, as you just KNOW these two could go like the clappers if they had the time. The other lower card match was The Beautiful People vs Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed. I'm getting the impression that TNA is trying to turn Kong Face, given that since Gail Kim left they simply dont have that top women's babyface they so desperately need. Taylor Wilde tried, bless her, but in a division full of Generic Blondes, she was just a Generic Blonde with a Title Belt.

The main event, however, which went for about 40 minutes was just Excellent, the cage-match Gauntlet had action from End to end - the only real downside being that there were far too many eliminations that you didnt actually see due to commercial Brakes. My wife felt that Kurt Angle's Dominance in the match was annoying, but to be honest I liked it for the sheer fact it was pushing the story forward that Angle and the Main Event Mafia wanted to Dominate and set up their win for the Lethal Lockdown captaincy. The fact that Jeff Jarret didn't win it set up the ending perfectly, when Samoa Joe - with his new "Kill every motherfucking thing that moves" persona, came down and dropped Kurt with a Muscle Buster for the pin.

All In All, it was an excellent show, and to be honest at the moment I'm far more excited about TNA Lockdown than I am about WWE Wrestlemania 25.

-Bendana

Nothin' But the Rain... (SPOILER WARNING)

2009-03-25T19:08:00.000Z

Well, Its all over.

I've dipped in and out of Battlestar Galactica for the whole of its four year run, and after the final episode played in the UK last night, Epic is pretty much the only way to describe the series. Even after reading up on the backstory, the fact that the show knew when to bow out on a high says lots about the way it was written.

And it was absolutely fantastic.

Right from the off, the Finale set the pace, interspersing flashbacks with the current events of the show. The Battle of the colony was fantastic in its sheer realism, with the crew of Galactica desperately trying to keep the Cylons from blowing them all to hell.

In a way though, the episode is going to leave me with a lot of bittersweet feelings. To be honest, even though I knew it was written out of the series, I was always after a true Apollo-Starbuck hookup and when Kara dissapeared at the end of the episode it left me sad, but not disatissfied. The mysticism that permeated the series - the sense of the higher power being involved - was one of the things that took the series away from the campiness of the original.

The most heartwrenching moment for me though wasnt any of the character dissapearances or deaths - Even though Roslin's death was fantastically and passionately done, in no small part because of James Edward Olmos's incredibly passionate acting in the scene - The Moment that broke my heart was when Galactica makes its final FTL jump to Earth. when the ships frame bucks and heaves after the jump, it looks like a creature in physical pain, and when Tigh announces that her back is broken, you feel for the ship itself, that carried its crew so far and fought so hard to protect them. When Sam Anders guided the ship into the sun, as the colonial anthem - the original series theme tune - played in the background, it was an absolutely beautiful moment.

In the end, the series bowed out at a perfect time. Rather than push itself too far, like Heroes or Lost, Galactica told its story perfectly from End to End, keeping its momentume without sacrificing its style.

And boy, am I gonna be investing in the complete series DVD set when it comes out. no competition.

-Bendana

caught a bit of TNA Destination X Last night.

2009-03-19T23:44:00.000Z

Don West is infinitely more entertaining as a heel. Seriously.

In movie news: If you are a certain age, then you will probably have read certain books as a kid. This may have been one of them:

Where the Wild Things Are.

Now, its easy to presume that once again they are going to rape your childhood memories. But that is disregarding one simple fact:

That poster looks motherfucking AWESOME.

Oh, and Iron Man 2 and Green Lantern are set to start filming. Yeah.

Mini-Rant of doom.

2009-03-18T08:48:00.000Z

1) The Simpsons is currently trying way to hard to be like family guys. random jokes do no fit its style, as illustrated by the st patricks day episode that aired last night.

2) I likes my "Town called Eureka." I does not likes it when sky pre-empts it for "Shane Richie - Make me Irish."

3) Please, Please, God can we get Joey Styles back as the play-by-play man on ECW. Him and Matt striker would be frigging AWESOME.

-Bendana.

Prince of persia, Blood the Last vampire, and Dragonball.

2009-03-08T15:55:00.000Z

seems I never really use this blog anymore. oh well, time to break the habit, as it were.

I'm at home after a week of work at my new job - yes, in a move that will surprise the three people who read this blog, I've moved away from door to dooring - and although I've acutally been at the job for about six weeks its still taking a little getting used to. basically, I work in the cal centre for the criminal records bureau. to answer the first two questions out of your mouth:

1) no, I cant look up your criminal record. I dont have access to it, and even if I did I'd get sacked for doing it.

2) I cant make the checks go any faster. I work in the frigging call centre.

anyways, the wife (oh yeah... got married two weeks ago as well. probably should have mentioned that...) has been away for the night so I decided to have a wander around the dingy back alleys of the internet. in doing so, I came upon these little gems:

PRINCE OF PERSIA.

Prince of Persia Images

so... yeah. I'm a big fan of the Prince of Persia games - even if I suck at them... but Jake Gyllenhaal? Mr Jake "Whitiest White Boy On the Block" Gyllenhaal?

seriously, I'm even a big fan of JG's work. hell, the guy was one of the very feww redeeming features of "The Day after tomorrow" but seriously, JAKE FUCKING GYLLENHAAL? AS THE PRINCE OF PERSIA? much as I admire the guys acting, he really isnt a dude I picture jumping off of walls with a sword and slashing up sand demons, y'know? Hell, I'd buy Shea LaBouef more than Jake Gyllenhaal.

and to be honest, its another part of an already mildly dodgy trend. There are talented Arabic actors out there. Last time I checked Jake Gyllenhaal wasnt the biggest box office Draw on the planet so precisely why has he been given this role?

A friend of mine recently had a rant on her livejournal about how the live action film of Avatar: The Last Airbender had, despite featuring a character group consisting primarily of asian people, has been casted featuring almost entirely caucasian actors. Prince of Persia seems to be following a similar trend. As I Said, Dodgy.

Blood, The Last Vampire.

The International Trailer

Before I get into any real rants about this one, I fucking LOVE Blood the last vampire. I still have my original edition VHS of the original anime.

However, there is one rather significant issue with making a feature length live action version:

Blood: The last vampire was essentially a showreel for Production I.G.

The whole point of this movie is to show of the animation techniques of the studio. And they think this is a good one to adapt for a US Audience? although that said, at least they're keeping the characters as Japanese.

Not sure how this will go down. there isnt exactly a lot of plot to keep the popcorn munching crowd away, and the potential for pleanty of stylis action as the trailer shows, but we'll see. There is going to have to be a hell of a lot of padding though, since the original is only 48 minutes long.

Moving on...

Dragonball Evolution.

Dragonball Evolution main site and Trailer.

I have to admit, unlike most people, who seem to be having something resembling a universal brainfart over this movie, I'm actually really looking forward to it.

The Reason? I'm not so fucking dumb that I'm going to take fucking DRAGONBALL seriously.

I mean, come on. This is the series where for entire episodes that characters squatted and went "HRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" whilst glowing yellow.

And the fans think that a live action movie could possibly ruin this concept?

you know, I hate to reuse and image, but...

you may be noting that I'm not repeating the previous rant about character-Racial elements simply because no issue of race was ever made in Dragonball as a series. but seriously, this film looks MOTHERFUCKING AWESOME. It has all the elements that ever attracted me to Dragonball are here: Martial arts, fantasy action, scifi action and Energy blasts.

To Butcher a quote, The Had me at "KameHameHa."

So yeah. I'm gonna use this thing a bit more often from now on. theres too many movies I like the look of for me not to.

-Bendana.

Well, its 10:30...

2008-09-10T10:28:00.001+01:00

And the world is not ended! WOOOOOO!

but that means I still have to go to my hospital appointment later today. not Woooo.

Meh.

2008-09-06T21:45:00.001+01:00

Ben Did not get the Barclays job. teh suck.

Meh.

Fundraising diary, 2/9/08

2008-09-02T23:50:00.000+01:00

Location: Holt/Ecclestone Park.

Signups: 0

Day report:

...Kill Me.

***

Oh, and the office are being douchebags. Last week, I missed out on Monday's shift because they didn't have me on a team. so I made this shift up on Wednesday - no harm, no foul.

on Friday, they give me a call saying that if I don't make the shift up on Saturday, I'll get a disciplinary. I remind them that I worked Wednesday, and they say thats fine.

today, I get a letter telling me that I HAVE A FUCKING DISCIPLINARY HEARING. not only that, but its on Friday - 20 minutes before my interview. so I have to go in tomorrow to play hell.

You know how they should remember that I made the shift up? Because they were on the fucking doors with me DURING THE FUCKING SHIFT.

Bellends.

Fundraising Report: LCD, 01/09/08

2008-09-01T22:45:00.001+01:00

Well, I have randomly decided to report on the fundraising experiences of the night and relate any stories that would mildly entertain.

LOCATION: Holt.

Long story shot, this place is duller than a trainspotters sex life. The whole town is literally divided into two halves: Council House Scally Land and God's Waiting Room. We jumped on the doors at about 4PM, and within about three doors I'd decided I really couldnt be arsed due to the sheer boredom of the day. The signup I did manage to get was an easy one - a nice lady who was into the charity from the word go. The highlight of the day was a in depth political rant/discussion with a woman myself and Ben Starkey signed up right at the end of the night.

Meh.

More tomorrow.

"What is life without a touch of luck?"
***

Where it all Begins... Again.

2008-09-01T12:50:00.000+01:00

Seriously, Fuck LJ. yeah, I'm leaving the wastelands of LJ for a grown-up Blog. Here is where I can rant about media stuff and general crap.

TNA is still awesome. great in ring action and decent writing.

WWE has peaked my interest with the championship scramble matches for Unforgiven this Sunday. Not enough to make me order the PPV, but a little. If they weren't so intent on making CM Punk look like a bitch I'd be happier.

UFC's last show was awesome.

Most of the stuff from Japan is still crap. Like this.

more the engrish!

Bex
xxx

So, what am I up to at the moment? well, I'm trying to break in my new keyboard since the old one went to pot. I'm STILL working for homefundraising, but due to an ankle injury I've had to cut down to three days. so I need a new job. fortunately, I have an interview on Friday for an inbound sales advisor position on Friday. 16k per year, and uncapped bonus. So here's hoping.

"What is life without a touch of Luck?"
***

please, oh god please...

2008-04-06T22:42:00.001+01:00

Can wrestling news sites please stop accepting house show reports from Knobheads?

prcrastination for the nation.

2007-12-16T22:53:00.001Z

So. here we are. after finding out that I'd been conned by the whole Laray Carr Scam I had to leave the world of freelance writing, at least temporarily, and look for a proper job.

Unfortunately, what happened for me was that out of sheer desperation, I ended up working for Platinum Force Promotions. Unfortunately that name is one synonymous with the rather notorious Cobra Group.

oh, wait, thats their rather nice looking official page. try this one instead:

Cobra Group Wikipedia Page

Or Better yet, this one:

Cobra Group Ripoff Report.

Much as I hate to say it, the stuff in the Ripoff Report is almost exactly the same as what happened to me, 200 miles away in Liverpool. I have to admit, I honestly bought into what they were telling me for about a week. then I came to my sense and spent the next three weeks looking for a way out before I finally quit and found a new job.

I have nothing against working door to door. I'm still doing it in fact. but working door to door for 60+ hours a week with no guaranteed wage? Not a chance. never again.

in the time I worked for a cobra office, I made £460. in the time I was there, I put in approximately 246 hours. in four weeks.

that works out at approximately 53p per hour. now, bear in mind that the only time I made a decent paycheck was in my first week, where I was on the "High Rate" (£40 for a duel gas/electric Direct Debit, £20 for cash-quarterly.)

for the next three weeks after that, I made £25 for a duel-fuel direct debit, and 13 for cash quarterly.

after my 30% security bond (in case people cancelled or pulled out) I never made more than a hundred quid in a single week. after three weeks of wearing an expensive suit that I reserved for special occasions. I did no writing for the entirety of that month - at the end of my 10-12 hour day, all I wanted to do was collapse into bed and sleep. sometimes I didn't even have the energy to eat. I was completely miserable. My relationship with my fiance, thankfully, actually became much improved by the situation. although we were seeing each other less, she stood beside me and kept me going. You cant have a relationship come under that kind of pressure and not come out stronger.

see, what they don't tell you is that Cobra takes over your entire Life. this "Self-Employment Opportunity" - the company makes you register as being self-employed in order to avoid paying tax - will leave you with no time to do anything you'd like to do with your life. in the time I was there, I knew of only two people in the entire office who were in relationships - Me and one of the other guys named Gary, who was married. everyone else spent the entirety of their spare time trying to score with the opposite sex. My crew Leader, Bryan, actually set a target for the two people he was going out with from his team (Yes, they literally spent ALL their time together) on how many girls they were going to finger that night in Warrington.

so anyways, after I was kept out knocking fresh doors until 21:20 on my second Monday, I finally lost any liking for the job. Here's a typical rundown of a typical day for me whilst I was working in Cobra:

9:00am: wake up, go for a shower. Get dressed. having to wear a suit every day really just doesn't work for me, especially when I'm walking round the rougher parts of Warrington and Liverpool. I might as well have painted a big "ROB ME" sign on my chest.

10-10:30am: Set off for work. I have to be at the office by 11.

11am-approx 1:00pm: the morning consists of pitch practice with other members of the team. no-one is really allowed to talk production, although the figures are given in "pieces" at the start of the crew meeting - a piece being either gas or electric. this makes it all seem like very high amounts. in my first week I scored 22 pieces. which all sounds well and good until you realise that means I only actually sold to around ten or so people, realistically. During this time, Bryan would normally do a "Sales Impact." where he would try and drum us into doing well for the day. the scary thing is, most of us actually bought into it.

Approx 1:00 pm: Muhammed or "Uzzy", the office owner, comes in and does the morning "meeting." This really consists of him trying to sell the idea of working in these conditions to people. the room has a cult-like atmosphere, and the crew leaders would respond to the random questions he'd throw in.

1-3pm. time to grab a quick lunch and then off to terrirtory for a hard days selling.

3pm-anywhere between 8:30 and 9:30pm: On the doors, working for nothing. on some days I did a single cash quarterly, which meant I made £6 for the entire day. Legally, we are meant to stop knocking fresh doors at 8pm, and then do callbacks. not once, in my entire time at cobra did I stop knocking fresh doors at 8pm. on some occasions, I knocked until past 9pm. it is only legal for salesmen to knock until 8 - charities can knock until 9pm.

9:30pm - 10:30pm: travelling back to the office to do my paperwork. I then had to hand around for the idiotic ritual known as Bells. literally: people who had done a certain amount of sales performed a certain action: 2 sales for a promoters bell, 3 sales for a leaders bell, 4 sales to blow on a hooter and 5+ or a personal best to bang a gong.

10:30 - 11:30pm: I leave the office and catch the bus home. I arrive anywhere between 11pm and midnight. exhausted, I barely taste dinner and collapse into bed, ready to get up at 9am again he next day.

so for that 12+ hours of work, I may be getting as little as £6. sometimes I earned nothing. so thats, lets see, 0-50p and hour. entirely on commission. given that the legal minimum wage in the UK for employees is £5.50, you can see why the company makes you register as being self employed. there were approximately 60 people working out of Uzzy's office. so...

60 X 12 = 720 hours worked.

720 X 5.50 = £3960.

thats one days wages, on minimum wage, for the entire office of field reps. this is before renting the building, paying the administrators and bills, etc. given how Uzzy used to brag that his paycheck was £1000 a day, and he took 100% of the office profits, it shows just how manipulative this system is.

Moving on, to offer comparison:

I'm now employed by Home Fundraising. I'm still doing door-to-door work, trying to get charity sign-ups for worthy causes. It should be noted that Cobra also runs charity campaigns, but on the same commission basis.

At home fundraising, my day consists of the following:

10-11am: wake up at my own pace. usually I receive a text telling me where I need to meet my team at around 11-12. my work uniform consists of Jeans, battered boots and a t-shirt.

1:30pm - 2:30pm. sometime around this I set off to meet my team. the earliest I've ever started for home fundraising, training days aside, was 2:00pm. on those times, I got paid an extra hour for the travel time to distant territories.

3-3:30pm: arrive at territory. usually we have our long break now, at the nearest pub, where we relax and get our gear together for the day.

4-4:15pm: we set out for work.

4:15-9pm. we knock doors. usually there are a couple of quick breaks during the nights knocking. unless the area has been particularly bad, usually everyone is in high spirits - unlike cobra, where no-one is allowed to talk about how many they sell, at HF we actively talk about getting signups, as there is a team-score as well as a individual score. If we get a two-average (Two signups per team member) sometimes we are allowed to leave early, thus giving an active incentive to do well on the night. Unless this happens, at 9pm we stop knocking, as it is ILLEGAL to knock after this time.

9pm: we head for the bus/train and head to either the pub or home. since I dont have to be up early the next day, I can relax and have a nice pint. since my fiance works here too, first one back buys the drinks. everyone is laughing and joking, and no-one has to go if they don't want to - unlike the cobra atmosphere where you are "Encouraged" to stay late.

and thats my day. not counting inner-city travel in Liverpool, I work approximately 5 hours per day, from 4pm to 9pm. I get paid a basic wage of £7.00 an hour to do this. should I get promoted to team leader - unlike cobra's meaningless promotions - I will receive £11 an hour. I have made genuine friends at home fundraising, and NO-ONE eyes up the local schoolgirls. if I get eight signups in a week, I receive a £50 bonus. for every signup after that I receive £30 in bonus.

I didnt mean for this blog entry to turn into an extended rant about cobra and I will say that I have nothing against commission pay - when I was freelancing, it was my bread and butter - but it has to be based upon reasonable working conditions. the Cobra group preys on people who are in desperate need of a job, like I was, to make them money at the expense of the people working for them. In 2005, Chris Niarchos, the head of the Cobra Group, made £359,000. Thats approximately £7000 a week, and his profits have at least doubled since then. I, on the other, was making an average of £70 a week to live on. on those wages, it would have taken me three weeks to make enough to pay my rent.

these days, I make a MINIMUM of £150 a week, after tax (yes, I pay tax now! I never thought I'd be glad to!) with a genuine chance of unlimited earning the better I do. and just as importantly, I am able to spend time with my fiance, play video games, and write again. I'm even getting the chance to finish off a piece of freelance work I started ages ago - and I'm going to send this link to the person who hired me by way of explanation for why the work is so late, since they've been incredibly understanding.

I know no-one really reads this blog, but if you see an advert in the paper worded like this:

Stuck in a rut? Fed up with a boring 9-5, minimum wage and no business progression?
Come and join the team at this friendly Liverpool City Centre based office where the key words are fun, money and success.
As a sales and marketing company we represent national clients and offer fast track progression, a great future and an excellent incentive structure for the more ambitious.
For immediate interview contact Michelle on ********** lines open till late.
Or apply online today!

Don't pick up the phone. just ignore it. only a miserable time awaits you.

Adventures of a Freelance Writer/Filmmaker.

2007-08-07T14:09:00.000+01:00

Yes, apparently I'm now legally considered a freelance writer, having been paid a grand total of forty quid for my first job. Believe me. It isn't a glamorous life. My first job consisted of writing Spam messages to go on Blogs - something that, were I responsible for the intent, would cause me to go into isolation and cower from the sun. The I wrote 130 descriptions of electric shavers that I haven't been paid for yet.

anyways.

Production on the first Toys in the Attic film has kinda stalled for the moment. not through any fault of anyone just... we haven't had time to do it yet. we're planning on filming a documentary about the burlesque subculture in Liverpool - at least for the moment. fortunately, we have a fantastic contact in the form of Millie Dollar, who is more than understanding of the fact that we simply cant start shooting yet. Nevertheless, I really should make an attempt to get some footage down on tape - even its just to make a trailer or the showreel we promised Millie.

****

On an entirely different note, I actually took the time to look at the announcements on Least I could Do today. And Imagine my surprise when I noticed This:

Now, if that wasn't funny enough, the little tidbit at the end, that Blind Ferret Entertainment are making a Looking for Group Movie, almost sent me into spasms of Joy. I love this comic.

Unfortunately, theres only one downside I can see: Distribution. Making a Movie is an excellent idea, but I do wonder whether they'll be able to get a cinema distributor for something that, lets face it, is going to be a violent animation (Especially if the short was anything to go by.)

Historically, US Movie distributors really don't "Get" adult animation, and as a knock on effect, neither does the general movie-going audience. Blind Ferret doesn't really seem to do Kiddy-movies, so it seems that their audience demographic seems to really be aimed at Adults, and through their subject matter, Geeky adults at that. The only way I can really see LFG: The Movie getting a distribution deal is if Blind Ferret put up a good amount of the funding.

Counterbalancing that, obviously there are options open to them. With the PvP animated series, they showed that they have a solid digital distribution system in place. DVD is also a valid option. But ideally, we'd all like to see Richard the warlock burning down an orphanage on the big screen. Whether its going to happen, however, is a completely different kettle of fish.

Do you know what I miss? #1

2007-07-14T00:31:00.000+01:00

Do you know what I miss? I miss Concept albums.

now, whats brought this on is listening to Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds for the three-billionth time today. I love this Album. I've listened to it so many times that I can recite most of it and just going "Dun-Dun-DUUUUUUUNNNNN" sends shivers up my spine. for me, its possibly the best concept album in the world.

Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, defines a concept album as "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical."

See, thats a very broad definition, and one that I feel is fundamentally wrong. a true concept album shouldnt be "Unified by a theme."

it should, by its very nature, tell a story. War of the worlds tells a story. Thats the whole point of it. To tell a tale through music.

I should point out now that there have been some concept albums in recent years. The Streets did A Grand Dont Come For Free, a tale of the main character losing £1000.

I did a little research on Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, and whilst there are concept albums coming out, most of them seem to be severely in the realm of metal. Don't get me wrong, I like metal, but it is not the kind of music geared to telling a story. Screaming into a microphone blurs lyrics so much that you cant even hear the words half the time. Seriously, it isnt anything against the music, but I listened to Midian, Cradle of Filth's concept Album based off of Clive Barker's Novella Cabal and I really didnt get any sense of story - primarily because of their musical style.

But unfortunately, I dont have a solution. despite the fact that the aformentioned War of the Worlds is constantly riding high in the charts -now of both DVD and Music, no-one seems to be capitalising on the interest in concept albums.

But oh, wouldnt it be grand if someone truly talented made something truly worth listening to?

Dark Corners of the Internet #1

2007-03-28T00:19:00.000+01:00

So, as I randomly do when I'm bore beyond conceivable belief, I had a look around Youtube today, and - as it came on my play list - I decided to look up the video for the Johnny Cash Version of Hurt.

So I watched the video, got a little choked up, then made a big mistake - looked at the comments.

Check it out for moronic idiocy!

Aw Crap. why the hell did I do that to myself. See, Hurt is a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song. Johnny Cash Covered it as his swan song, before he died.

But of course, not one jot of this matters to the moronic portion of the internet. you know the portion that doesn't pay attention to such things as grammar and spelling. to them, all that matters a big ol' argument about which version is better. My idea for this type of rant was to go through individual comments, but I simply dont have the energy to deal with the sheer shitstorm of mental incapacity on that comments page.

What has the human race done to deserve this? Oh, right.

For my part?

I mean, to be honest, I prefer the Cash version. its speaks more to me as a person, and while both versions are powerful, this one means more on my level, because I didnt got threw the things that Trent Reznor went through. but Cash's version is one that can be related to by anyone who has ever reflected on their life.

I mean, clearly it affected Reznor as well. he refers to it as being Johnny Cash's song now, not his.

However It doesn't matter which version of the song is "Better" or "Original". both versions are being sung by men who have gone through hell and back to fight for their lives. At the end of the day, whether its a song about depression like Reznor's version, or a reflection on a life soon to end, Like Cash's, the fact remains that not one single damn person posting on youtube has the right to attack either version.

Nipponphiles and Me

2007-03-13T01:44:00.000Z

Okay, I imagine that this rant is gonna make me a little unpopular, but frankly, I couldn't care less. its my goddamn Journal - doing unpopular rants is one of the benefits of having one.

Anyways, this is a rant I've been meaning to have for a long time. it's one that affects me personally, and its one that affects the people around me.

here's the opening sentence:

Just Because Something Is From Japan, Does Not Make It Cool.

Ah. that feels better.

the above sentence may be a little funny coming from me, but to be honest, who else is it better to come from. much as I'm loathe to admit it, I have a fairly decent perspective on popular Japanese culture. I'm head of an Anime society, for chrissakes.

But even though I like Anime, this doesn't mean that I have to start acting like everything coming out of Japan is the equivalent of Jesus popping into the corner shop for a pint of milk and a chat with the owner.

What has brought this on? well, to be honest, a big part of it is J-Music. I'd like to think I'm fairly diverse in my tastes in music, but to be frank when someone tries to convince me that some pop princess is better just because she's singing in fucking Japanese, I start to have serious doubts about their sanity.

Same goes for J-Rock. To those who know me well, my dislike of generic Metal/Rock/Indie is well known. to be honest, because my music tastes are relatively diverse, it takes a lot for a song to catch my ear these days, and since I'm not that big a radio listener anymore, airplay isn't a factor.

GENERIC ROCK IN JAPANESE IS JUST AS BAD AS GENERIC ROCK IN ENGLISH.

I've listened to J-Rock. It doesn't impress me more than most other rock. it's the same principle as my Previous rant on Independent film - Half the time, it's people trying to go "Look at Me, I'm cultured! I listen to foreign music!"

You want to convince me you're cultured? Go Listen to some Mozart, then we'll talk.

This isn't to say that everyone who is into Japanese pop culture is like this. I know plenty of people in the JMU anime society who aren't, but I've also encountered plenty of people who are. people who are convinced that because it comes from the far off distant land that gave us Pokemon and Playstations, it must be cool.

These are the same kind of people who buy this:

And No, for the record, buying a Hello Kitty Vibrator does not make you cool. It makes you, quite literally, a Wanker.

So, to wrap up. It's okay to like Japanese stuff. hell, I like Japanese stuff - I even watch Godzilla movies for chrissakes, but speaking randomly at me in Japanese and telling me that a band is cool essentially because they're Japanese doesn't impress me. There's plenty of cool Japanese stuff, but lets be honest, theres an ungodly amount of Japanese Shite as well. Seriously:

That Thing doesn't even look comfortable.

-Ben

Independent "Artistic" Film.

2007-03-13T01:15:00.000Z

I am starting to get naffed off with my Independent cinema module. Really. To be honest, its got to the point where it pretty much sums up everything that irritates me about film courses.

OKay, those of you who've gone through media studies courses will know what I'm going on about. everyone who does media studies, and gets into it goes through this phase where they'll only acknowledge that "Artistic" films are worth watching. Now, I've been doing Advanced Media theory for THREE GODDAMN YEARS.

I got over that phase about halfway through my first semester. the whole little arguments surrounding it are the equivalent of Intellectual masturbation, and to be honest it got old very, VERY quickly. anyone who drags out media theory on me at this point, who isn't actually a media analyst or in my Screen Studies class just doesn't impress me anymore, because frankly, I know a hell of a lot more than them.

Tell me, can you discuss the Mise-en-Scene of Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy in relation to his status as a cult film auteur? Didn't think so.

and hate to say it, but anime fans are the worst offenders. So many Anime fans refuse to accept that it isnt the god of all film genre. I love anime as much as the next man - hell, I wouldnt be head of the anime society if I didnt - but the majority of it is about as deep as the average puddle. There are a few notable exceptions, but when someone tries to convince me that Akira is up there in terms of movie-making history with Casa-Fucking-Blanca, on the basis of "ITs anime so its art", I start to get very irritated.

But moving back to the subject at hand. Today we were studying John Cassavettes. as an independent filmmaker, he was reknowned for making films that "Challenged the Norm." I wont deny, that in terms of Independent Filmmaking, Cassavettes was important, but in terms of a filmmaker....

well...

lets just say, that Old Johnny-boy's films are shot with Long distance Zooms, out of focus shots, obvious editing and improvised acting.

And this is defined as artistic.

Bullshit.

you know what I define a piece of film that is badly edited, with Jerky long distance zooms, out of focus shots and poor dialouge? Shoddy. It isn't artistic, its poor filmmaking. If I tried to hand something like that in as coursework, under the claim that it was artistic, Not only would my tutor fail me, she'd beat me liberally over the head and shoulders with a lead pipe for being so fucking retarded.

when I make a film, I take pride in my work, from the story through to the editing. that was why I was so unhappy with Reaped. to see someone sell a shoddy piece of crap like Shadows and actually make money off of it just depresses me beyond belief.