SomTervo

Dude, it's totally true. I'm no violin afficionado, though I do love it- but his skills on violin left me speechless for days. This is his basic level skill- which only exponentially increases when he loops his own live violin playing to make up the bassline, rhythm section, melody, and counter melody to his own songs. Onstage. Seamlessly. Fucking incredible. I wish I was from California! Though any time you feel like visiting Scotland or Edinburgh (really good city for writers, btw), give us a call! You wish you were from the UK. Damn yanks. Being an English Language and Literature student: I APPROVE OF THIS COMMENT (Not really though, any good Language lover knows that there's no "correct" way of using language: as long as you are understood it's effective, and effectiveness is all that matters) Hahaha thanks, ridonculously enough though, it's actually my girlfriends! Not sure if she's ever worn it though, or ever will wear it, so it's pretty much mine.

I don't know why I made such a long post. I totally agree with everything you said there except: -Superman 1 is fucking incredible. Best superhero movie ever made imho. Completely true to the comic, but completely enjoyable in it's own way on the big screen. (EDIT: I just realised you said Spiderman 1 and 2. My bad. I really really like those first two entries, and am looking forward to the new reboot, though Spiderman 3 was pretty damn retarded, in no way due to fault by Raimi) -I thought the Incredibles was good, but not great. It had way too much generic affable kid-movie comedy. I barely laughed in it- but I did enjoy it when they started superhero'ing proper. -Iron Man was, imho again, good fun and pretty cool, but not a great movie. All I can think about when I watch either of the Iron Man's is how much of an asshole the director Jon Favreau is. I hate that guy. I totally agree in every way. I even also hate on Watchmen pretty hard. But I have a totally different reason for Watchmen hate. Zack Snyder completely failed to take into account the most important thing when it comes to adaptations of any form of art- what works in some formats, won't work in others (you have to have flexibility to change elements of story, character, and pace, to make it work better as a whole). Watchmen (film) got the plot perfectly. It didn't quite get the story perfectly, as there's a lot of narration in the novel that wouldn't translate to a real-time medium like film. But what it completely failed at, was making the plot and story watchable in a film sense. Instead of looking at what makes the novel strong, and adapting that into a film, Snyder just copy and pasted. Sure, the comic's more intense and cinematic moments worked fine (Rorschach's discovery of the death in the house was incredible), but in order to make the non-action parts of a comic work in a film you have to do a lot of changing. Smooth out the story, cut the characters down (you can't fit 12 long issues of character development into 2 hours real-time), change the order of some events, etc etc. This will make it watchable. Basically make it 2 hours of easier to watch, interesting film, that flows from start to finish, and tells the story and characters effectively. The intensely edited and full-on Watchmen failed at that. It felt jaggy and very stop-start (to me, at least). Often I was aware that I was just looking at a screen and thought "this isn't fun to watch"- I wasn't immersed at all. Tl;dr- Because Snyder didn't smooth the comic's experience to work in film, it felt like it was missing something important, and it wasn't very interesting to watch, though it was a really faithful recreation. Everyone I know who hadn't read the comic but saw the film, didn't dislike the film, but didn't "get it". The comic's pace is perfect and you get to know the universe, but the pace of the comic doesn't work in the medium of film; so everyone I know who saw it, and hadn't read the book, was left feeling non-interested and confused.

It's a lot like that. Only more horrific.

I dont smoke, and never have (have breathed in literal tonnes of smoke my Dad's put out over the years when I was at home though), but hey, cigar's don't count yo! Enjoy a good cuban!

Same. Though I generally tend to appreciate movies of all types and topics. I know lots of people who didn't like Black Swan because it was solely that kinda thing. Their loss tbh!

I ACCEPT THAT OFFER, AND RAISE YOU A BAR OF SOAP.

Fucking truth right there. Never finished one, though I kiiinda (i.e. quite a lot) enjoyed FFVII. The person below me sure loves some baked beans.

Haha, I have a friend who's cat IS that cat!! On this Assassin's Creed note, I HAVE to go with the Poisoned Blade from II and Brotherhood. Anyone ever used this? I wasn't interested at all until a friend gave me this suggestion: 1.) Find some guards in a well-populated area. 2.)Throw money near the guards so that civilians (and maybe guards) come running over. 3.) Stab one of the guards (the larger/longer their weapon, the better the result) with the poisoned blade. 4.) Keep throwing money to maintain civilian proximity to the rapidly deteriorating guard. 5.) Enjoy the guard madly and inadvertently battering civilians and fellow guards about, while you stand back and lolhard. I love the Pulse Rifle from Dead Space, too. Good fall back in any situation.

Ah, for some odd reason I thought you were from the UK- although obviously the style of Festivals is globally alike! That is really weird. It looks like, in the second option, they've gone for a different, more 'rocky' audience (whatever that means)? I'd still go, but the first option looks amazing, I've seen a lot of those bands at UK festivals, too. Did you see Andrew Bird? I saw him in a tiny venue in Glasgow. Was incredible. What a guy. Anyway, on-topic: THE HOOOORROR I love pics that are a lol and impromtu when taken, but the end result looks genuinely like something pretty terrible is going on. (This is a very old pic, forgive the hair and tracksuit bottoms and wizard-stick party beer can stick)

Hahahaa. Love it. I meant to ask Brain- what festival is the first pic you put up from? I recognize the typeface on all the stands. Unless it's not a festival. Then just ignore me. True, I'm positive he's got a couple that are a bit rough, but overall yeah, not the hardest. He's no Jaco Pastorius. (That's his name right? Haven't listened to him in years) Haha. I have loads of old clothes that are too well-maintained and too good to get rid of! Plus, I'm not made of money. And if I were, I wouldn't go spending myself because that's kinda dumb. I'd be incredibly worried about people mugging me too...uh...what was I saying? Since I've been playing gigs with one band, I've actually had to keep a track of who's taken photos or videos of me wearing what. Sad story. Sad story bro =(

McCartney's basslines are deceptively complex. I'm partial to a bit of inflatable apple-strummed guitar But in reality I enjoy real guitar: And piano and accordion: That's me in my Dad's band. My Dad's the double-bass nutter. (Notice I'm wearing almost identical clothing in the last two photos, and I'm pretty sure the pics were taken years apart. That's always nice.)

(I'm not the creepy creeperson to the left in the background) I can't find many full body shots, please don't ask why I chose this one: Lessons learned from this exercise- how to steal photos off Facebook, despite their new un-photo-copyable interface! You play bass?! You goddamn SKILL. We should do a rendition of Lovely Rita.

Fucking spoilers dude. I can't unsee that shit!

I love that album. But dude, which the hell track is that song? I'm sure I've never heard that before!

That's the hardest I've laughed in a long time, friend. Here I was thinking, "Pffft, there's definitely been good pun runs since the date of this exchange... Oh wait... It never ends... IT. NEVER. ENDS." Truly an epic in the realm of punfests.

Hahahaha. Hopefully that's a picture someone took during filming right? Like, not from the actual film itself. Looks pretty retarded. Really bright and his eye-bits are all red. EDIT: Also, why does he have trainer type things going on? Unless that's just something he wears for comfort during filming, but it sure looks like part of the costume. He wouldn't be able to climb with trainers on...

The Dark Knight Rears.

Actually, that's a good call. It's still not as precise as direct button mapping, but that is a good call.

I was totally freaking out for a minute there.

I thought at moments it went really bad, like his pointless use of words following a "dick-xxxxx" paradigm. When he said "dick-tits" for the 3rd time I was pretty irritated. However, overall I think it goes with the 'extreme/hardcore fun' theme of the game. The demo's meant to be played repeatedly, so I wasn't bothered by the length too much. I thought the same as yourself in that there didn't seem to be too many combo possibilities- but seriously, play it again or watch some videos online- there is a lot you can do in the game combo-wise. EDIT: I'm also pretty sure the woman just said something like "your fart might knock down this building, it doesnt sound happy". However i'm pretty sure she said "fucking" instead of "fart/farting" anyway. Who knows!

Mama, just killed a man Put a gun against his head

I think the "two gun carrying limit" versus "arsenal carrying limit" argument depends on the game. To me, in Uncharted 2, having only two slots fits. IRL you'd be clattering about and wrestling with straps if you had two large rifles, and the name of the game is seriously-action-toned realism in Uncharted. Plus, it only takes half a second to roll over to the gun you'd like to use, swap to it, use it for a few seconds, then roll back to swap back. It's fast paced and all. However, I felt GTAIV would have benefitted from having a 2-3 gun limit. The whole game goes for this cinematic realism thing- but then you can carry a sniper rifle, RPG, and assault rifle inside your jacket pocket. Yeah right. It also would have made the gameplay much more interesting imho if you only had a couple of weapons to hand at each moment, it would have fitted with the action more. In Bulletstorm, I think having 4 slots is ideal. With 9-10 weapons at once, you'd be awkwardly flipping through the interface to swap to a different gun for a better combo- if several enemies are flying through the air in stasis as you try to get the right gun, you probably don't want/need that fumbling. 4 slots, as Hot Heart said, would be best: you want to be able to switch to any of your guns in a moment, each mapped to a button. It should also add an element of strategy- choosing 4 guns before you play that can combine or combo in an interesting way, and trying to make the most of them throughout.

Hey, go listen to their second album, Aha Shake Heartbreak. Their 3rd album onwards are the Kings of Leon you, and everyone else, know, for being huge stadium-rock assholes and having really annoying songs. Though a lot of people seem to like that stuff. Aha Shake, for about two years from 2005 or so, was my favourite album. It's really incredible, has this magical energy, and almost every song on it is catchy and memorable indie rock/pop, rather than dull and repetetive stadium rock. Seriously check [old] them out. I can't stand them now, but they used to genuinely be my favourite band. Great call! One of my Dad's favourite bands, he's trying to make us cover them in his band I'm gonna whip out some Midlake here. Enjoy guys. (I'd recommend just listen to the song and don't watch the video, because while a good video, music video's always bias a first listen to a band)

Heh, yeah, I found Begins a lot more enjoyable really, but yeah I wouldn't want to watch it twice in a row. The Dark Knight, however, I'd happily see more than once in pretty quick succession. It's a much more mature and interesting film overall.

Yeah... At least we've got the best part of a year to save for it. I think I'm going to work my balls off during the summer to have enough for this come Xmas. I haven't been too into handhelds since I was a kid (though I have and enjoy a DS)- but by god I want an NGP. It's so feature-laden, it looks actually worth it- not just for gaming.