An interesting web comic/graphic I found on the tubes. I can see that that there’s a lot of truth in this. In today’s society, we do indeed have in infinite appetite for distractions which lead us away from what is really important in our lives and I’m somewhat guilty myself. Can these distractions ruin a person? You betcha.
So Lost is finally over. What the hell did I just see last night, anyhow? The whole series has reminded me of a mashup between X-Files and Gilligan’s Island.
What was real? What was imagined? What was dreamed? What was alternate universe? What was purgatory? What was heaven?
What is the island? Who was Charles Widmore and why did he care so much about the island? WTF was the DHARMA Initiative? So what’s going on with the island now that everyone is dead? Where happened to the black guy Michael, and his son Waaaaaalt? Basically, all this ending tells me is that all the backstory was absolutely meaningless; the entire six years of random weirdness was just stretched out to say “LOL, everyone dies and the good people get to go to heaven.”
Maybe I shouldn’t think about it too much. It’s like the Force in Star Wars, something cool which certain people could wield but when Lucas tried to explain it with midichlorians it just sucked.
Benjamin Linus has to be one of my favourite TV characters ever. He was just bad-ass.
Urgh, this is hurting my brain. I have to think about this more. I can’t believe I invested 6 seasons in watching this show. More often than not I’d come away thinking, “What just happened?”
I get most of these. My favourites are Fth (Element), B5 (Londo) and the 91st element. The whole table is really well done, and I like how they are all grouped. Only ones I don’t understand are 3001 (Tom Hanks) and HlW (Man). Also, Lo (Lights Out) is another I’m unfamiliar with.
Periodic Table of Sci Fi
This is gonna be so cool. Maybe Canada will even win a gold this time around. Canada will win the men’s hockey, it’s just a matter of who they’re gonna play. But those Russians look awfully strong.
The opening was great; the First Nation peoples looked fantastic in their traditional costumes. The guy popping out of the screen was a surprise. The welcome poles looked brilliant.
Killer whales!
Trees!
Tapdancing leather clad scots!
Rather than a bunch of smaller presents each, Santa bought us one big “family present” for Christmas. He got us an extra set of controllers with Nun-Chucks, and set of Wii Remote Plus. He even managed to slip in the Wii Fit Plus package which he must have known Suzanne really desired.
After opening the boxes on Christmas morning we fired it up to test it out. I did a quick RTFM, but in the end I didn’t really need to. The system is easy to set up and configure. All I really needed to know were some technical details like the range of the controllers so that we didn’t stand too far back.
We were presented with the Wii menu. From here we could play a game, connect to a network for updates and internet browsing, or adjust the settings like date/time and location. These configurations were all easily found, changed and saved. Connecting to the WiFi network was as easy as supplying the passphrase. We don’t intend to do a lot of web browsing on this, but hey… it’s handy for system updates and adding Wii “channels”.
We found navigating with the Wii Remotes to be an easy learning curve; simple and intuitive. I’ve never owned any other form of Nintendo game so I thought it might be a chore to learn the buttons but it wasn’t difficult at all.
So after familiarising ourselves with the controls we thought we’d put it to use and play some games. First up was Wii Sports, the default game included in the packaging which is a collection of 6-8 games like Tennis, Bowling, Boxing and a few others. It took us a few minutes each to learn each game, but that’s to be expected from something completely new.
The next game was Wii Sports Resort, which is a collection of about 20 mini-games plus a plug-in to the Wii Controller which makes the controller more sensitive and precise. This sensitivity is needed for almost all the games like Golf, Frisbee, Sword Fighting, Basketball and Archery. You eventually learn that you get rated on each performance with points. Once you reach 1000 points you become a “Pro”. There’s also a handful of “stamps”, another form of reward for “achievements”. So far I’m a pro on Sword Fighting and Archery.
The Wii-Fit bundle includes the Wii-Fit Board which enhances the Wii-Fit game. It’s a balance board which is remarkably sensitive to the slightest shift in weight. Using the Yoga section of Wii-Fit showed me that I have absolutely no balance. The Wii-Fit Board can also be used with other games such as Raving Rabbids, which my mum had coincidentally given to us as a Christmas gift. It opens up new possibilities in the game such as sitting down on the board and using it as a sled, or standing on it sideways to use it as an interplanetary surf board. It’s great fun.
I have found, however, that we have been putting in more time on the Wii that I would like. Sure it’s Christmas, it’s school holidays and it’s the new novelty but I was surprised to find that we had logged an average of more than 6 hours a day on it, actively playing games. This week we had our first Wii-free day and we intend to ration out trigger time from now on. I think the kids can play as much Wii-fit as they want as that will help with balance, strength and general fitness. But other games should be doled out in small amounts. Hopefully the novelty will wear off, but not too much. It’s a fun system, and some games like Wii-Fit can be a great benefit if used properly.
I don’t get what it is with Eric Bana. I just don’t understand why he is such a star. This ignorance may be contributing to my paranoia, for he seems to stalk me wherever I go.
Even though I never watched these shows, I remember he was in the likes of Comedy Company or Full Frontal. These were very low quality, low brow comedy shows even for Australian standards. Yep, you understand correctly. I don’t think there’s any good Australian comedy shows. It all went down hill after “Hey Dad” left our screens. I only remember Bana from the promos you’d see advertising next weeks episode of whatever pathetic show he was on. I never watched them because I valued my brain and didn’t want it turned to mush.
Then 2000 happened, and he played the part of Dr James Wright’s nephew in “Chopper”. And he was pretty good too. He put on a stack of weight, and must have studied footage of Chopper Read or met him because he had a lot of Read’s mannerisms and idiosyncrasies down pat. I enjoyed the character and enjoyed the movie. Two thumbs up, as they say. And “Good for him”, I thought. He’s done something better than “Poiter” and the other idiotic characters. Chopper is essentially a caricature in much the same way his Full Frontal characters were so it wasn’t a big leap to for Bana to play him, but still. Not bad. Yeah, yeah, Bana had a bit part in “The Castle” but Chopper was his first lead role as far as I can remember.
But the next thing I see is he’s in this “Black Hawk Down” movie with the likes of Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor and Tom Sizemore. Bana played some mysterious, baddass CIA agent and it was weird as hell listening to his American accent. But it was still weirder seeing him in a huge Hollywood Blockbuster. I couldn’t, and still can’t, get past his work on Full Frontal. This can’t be the same dude.
Since then, he’s popped up when I least expect it. The Hulk? Good grief. How did he get that gig? Did the casting agent think it’d be a good joke to get Bana to play Banner? And he played Hector in Troy? Where did this come from? I was down at my parents’ place last year and late one night we were looking for something to watch on Foxtel. My sister suggested some random arty Australian movie called “Romulus, My Father” and who should be lead? You got it.
I seem to notice him in magazines, in TV ads, in radio and such, partly because people I know usually point it out and say “There’s Bana for you, Brian!” but partly because I believe I may have wronged him in a previous life and he is somehow stalking me.
Last week, I watched the live telecast of the AFL Grand Final, and who’s mug appears front and centre dressed in St Kilda garb? Eric bloody Bana! It was almost worth it at the end seeing him teary eyed when his team lost. I watched the Norm Smith medal ceremony then left the TV room to get some sushi and flick through the TV magazine from the newspaper to see what else was on that day. And who had a feature article in the TV mag? G’wan, guess. It’s like this all the time!
What a rip. Julie won only because she was the cuddly underdog, the housemum who took on all the pros and beat them by cooking lovely home meals. What rubbish. The show has cut it’s own throat and bled out any credibility it might have had. They will not be able to sell a book on how to cook lamb roasts. Poh’s exotic background, style and looks are more marketable than Julie’s, I think. They let Julie ride right through the whole show when I think she probably should not have been there in the first place.
Not that I intently watched the whole series, mind you. I saw the first couple shows and then lost interest and just caught a few bits here and there. I watched a couple bits from the final 3-4 shows and was surprised to still see Julie. I was convinced about 2 weeks ago they’d already chosen their favourite. She could have served up uncooked dog poo and still won.
From the “Wow, I never saw that coming” department, Summer Glau is going to appear in Dollhouse. Reports say she is not going to play another dead-eyed, mindless killing machine (see her roles in Firefly, Terminator) but will instead play “somebody who talks too much.” I was beginning to fear she was being totally typecast but this move may be the one to move her career along and I’m on board with anything trying to bring life into that show. I so want to like Dollhouse. It had some interesting situations in a couple episodes which need to be explored in greater detail.
I can’t get over this “Something About Miriam” show. I haven’t seen it, but I have heard about it. Six boofy blokes compete to woo a hot chick, $10000 and a week long cruise.
Only, the chick ain’t a chick. She’s a pre-op transexual.
I’m a bit torn on this issue, if there is an issue at all with this show. One one hand, I can’t believe that the producers would be willing to subject those seven people to such humiliation. Sure the chick is one hot babe, but once the chosen bloke finds out she’s a man he is going to reject her.
On the other hand, this all makes rather entertaining TV.
But this is the whole issue, at least to me personally. Why would I take delight in someone being humiliated, especially in front of an audience of millions? Am I that shallow that I can only find entertainment at the expense of others emotions?
And how can TV entertainment in general come to this? I think this is crossing the line, even for “Reality TV”, which is an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Darth Vader Figures
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