deanb

I picked up the first tier of the current Weekly Bundle. Seems alright for a quid.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/12/explosion-chinese-port-city-tianjin So big ass explosion in China. I imagine it'll be some time before we fully find out the cause, and the eventual causality toll (it was 7 when I went to bed, 17 here and 50+ last I checked, with hundreds injured). So far it sounds like it was a fire at a petrol station (there's a bunch of VW's nearby so I imagine it's used to fill up cars and port vehicles), which then set an explosives cache on fire and explosives do what explosive do. Thankfully it seems that due to being at 4AM the port was pretty much empty at the time, given the size of the explosion and images of the destruction around if it was mid-day then there would be a lot higher death toll.

New trailer.

5 year term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-term_Parliaments_Act_2011

That's nearly double though. £40 is not so much in a single go (especially given it's less than most PS4 games) that I'd begrudge it.

https://twitter.com/CorbynWarningsheheh

Ah. See ages back I bought my sisters DS since she kinda needed money and I needed pokemon, but at the time it was still a current console (though a DS lite in an age of DSi n DS XL). I'd wager that a PS2 in the age of PS4 is practically worthless. You could always give him the money, and then donate the console to charity? Even if not sold in a charity shop for like a fiver it might get shipped out to provide joy to some poverty stricken kid.

Oh I understand their worry that he's not going to be able to be PM, but they've 5 years to the next election which enough time to sort that side out and tbh I don't think apart from Tories opening up camps for people sanctioned on benefits with "Work will set you free" above the gate they'll likely get in the next election too since the other parties are either too small or in disarray. However he is increasing interest in Labour which is what they need. Especially with likes of the Welfare Bill (I understand why they did what the did with the abstaining, but it wasn't really properly communicated). Labour are kinda becoming Tory-lite, just following along in many cases and not really being the "opposition". Heck there's been casual calls for SNP to be the official opposition since Labour is seen as so ineffective there. People are disillusioned in Labour party. The big reason Tories are able to so effectively live up to thier nickname of "nasty party" at the moment is cos, like with the coalition, there's not really anyone to stand up to them. It can't really get any worse under Corbyn.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/08/11/deus-ex-mankind-divided-is-the-star-wars-original-trilogy-of-game-ceilings/ Sounds like it's going to be losing out on the ceilings http://imgur.com/a/FDAbV

Sony to raise the 1 month and 3 month price of PS+ in the UK http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps-plus-subscription-prices-to-climb-in-uk/1100-6429636/ No eventual price confirmed so far.

So Labour are getting shaky cos Jeremy Corbyn is looking likely to become the new Labour leader. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33849534 Democratically elected leader of the labour party, oh no!. He's considered too left for a party that I guess is drifting towards the right. Which is probably what's kinda cost them the government this time around (Ed hasn't helped either, and David is great response to call them out on that), and led to Greens gaining a fair lead on votes (though still marginal). I agree that he isn't long-term leadership material (and neither was Ed), and he's not someone I'd see as Prime Minister, but at this point they need someone to lead the Labour party before they start thinking about a leader for the UK. A radical could shake things up, maybe remind them who they're for, and what they're about rather than just being there as a counterweight for Tories.

Well they do know what they're doing. The rich (aka their friends and donators) can buy large amounts of cheap housing, then rent out to everyone else. So you end up paying rent for however many years, and without anything to really show for it. Compared to paying a mortgage off where you at least have it invested in a building you partially, then mostly, then wholly own. They've practically moved the age of adulthood up to 25 anyway, anyone below that is a kid that should live with thier parents. Anywho, this is more for the UK Politics thread. Talking of!

Probably took a lot of grunt work to make this cake. Lucky no one slipped or they could have wrex'ed it.

We have a washer, and that's considered normal. A dryer however is a huge amount of space to take up (our houses are kinda small on a global/European average).

I imagine the lights matter little in the grand scheme of things, even less if folks in a 5 person house get in the habit of doing a weekly tumble dry each even in summer. We didn't have one in the old place and did just fine (just bought two racks). And yeah I'd consider tumble dryer quite the luxury item, my dad has one, but he also has quite a nice house to go along with it. I would have preferred to not have a tumble dryer in the grand scheme of things. Things have got slightly funner, since their door doesn't close properly got to hear them having a good old natter n pat on the backs for being dicks to me while I took my dry laundry off the rack. :/

One of my housemates must have grown up much richer than me cos it's 20oC even now at 7PM and the tumble dryer is on in August. We're not really on speaking terms any more, but when one of them decides their clothes must be dried by tonight and not just either hung outside for a couple hours or put on one of the two drying racks or on the many radiators (so many radiators) I kinda feel I have to say something (especially when we're on a shared bill which is a set amount unless we go over the estimate and since summer we're not running up a gas bill for the boiler, or electricity bill for the lights n what not during summer it's meant to be kinda low). Ooh, I guess I found out which cos I got a response. Such mature people.

Justice League: Gods & Monsters Pretty neat riff on stuff. I think I've mentioned I'm a sucker for the Elseworlds/What-if stuff. It's clearly a darker world given the Justice League here are Suicide Squad at best, given they vaporise people, suck their blood dry n cleave in two. I think it worked quite well in the format it had, managing to include backstory on them all without horribly messing up the film, and the overall plot didn't totally outstay its welcome. It could maybe have worked as a TV series but I think it'd just get silly or strained. Only minor..well not really a plothole since it's more something from the other books but: Not sure why Bruce Wayne wasn't Batman, and where Wonder Woman was since Superman is the only one to be "different". Also the High Fathers actions too, though I guess most New Gods stuff I know of tends to focus around Darksied so maybe he's not as "good" in normal continuity either. (also watched Princess Bride with little sister n chunk of Ghostbusters but doubt I need to give much of a review)

I finally finished Amber Spyglass. What an absolute and utter piece of twaddle. The ending took fucking forever and was pretty much "they kiss and the multiverse is saved!". For something that started off with witches and armoured bears and "daemons" it ends up with just a several hundred page long rant about the Church/organised religion n it makes everyone stupid. Now reading H2G2 cos I have a device full of tons of books and end up reading the same ones. But it'll take some of the sourness off from the HDM series.

Maybe clean it up and dump it at a charity shop instead?

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150803-why-rocky-horror-is-still-fabulous-at-40 Decent read on BBC about cult-films, now that Rocky Horror Picture Show is in its 40th year of screening.

Well that was anti-dramatic

I'm somewhat mixed. Part of me feels this'll be a bit wank. But the other part of me is that Vin Diesel is kinda playing his DnD character and he really gets into stuff.