Thursday, 6 August 2009
Wakey Wakey.
Christ, did someone die? It's been deathly quiet around here for the last few days. Hope you haven't all run away in shame over your poor quiz performance. ;)
I haven't had a proper monoblog for a while so allow me to offload a ton of random stuff from my brain into yours.
Films. Wow. Some world class film making going on at the moment huh? Just the other day I'm watching TV and see a trailer for some awesome looking action movie. I couldn't recognise what it might be and was literally stunned at the end when it announced "G.I. Joe". GI JOE!! Oh my God! Seriously, if someone had pitched a GI Joe film to me I would have immediately said "not interested". But it does look pretty awesome. Pretty damn awesome. I'm interested.
Also getting a lot of press recently is Lars Von Trier's latest masterpiece, Antichrist. And I don't use that term lightly. The Daily Mail has already called for it to be banned nationwide which was enough for me to prick up my ears. They want it banned? Gotta be good. Apparantly it's uber-violent, sick, twisted and full of psychological/supernatural weirdness. I won't spoil it by saying anything about it other than, if you think you can stomach it, go for it. It's not meant to be pleasant though, so no coming back for me if you get mentally scarred for life. Me, I'll be getting hold of it ASAP. ^^
Then there's Alice in Wonderland. :D Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter? It's either gonna fail harder than Willy Wonka or set a new standard. I hope it's the latter.
Then there's straight to DVD "Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus". Pretty self-explanatory title there. Is it the new Godzilla? Probably not. But I still want to see it. Sure it's a fight any child could put on in the bath with his toys and I doubt Mega Shark will be a particularly deep main character but who cares? Bring on the mega shark. Here's the trailer.
Gonna be fucking hilarious? :) I hope so.
And then of course, in between a local calamity involving flaming acetylene cylinders and a 200m evacuation that delayed the latest Bitesize (long story, don't ask) I have tried to squeeze in some videogaming. I reactivated my Steam account (games for life, it was always such a genius concept) and redownloaded a bunch of games I bought back in 2003. Wayhay, counterstrike. Still as addictive as ever. But I also bought four 'new' titles.
Sniper Elite. Snipers are awesome. Nearly as awesome as ninjas. Especially WWII era snipers. I loved the later half of Call of Duty where we got to play as a moisin-nagant wielding Russian sniper. And I loved the film Enemy at the Gates. So this was a must-buy. I'm still on level one because it's difficult and time consuming but it's so enjoyable being just one man, slowly working your way across the terrain, picking off Russians and Germans from great distance before shifting position and going at it again. And the beautiful slow mo bullet cam on a headshot is very rewarding!
Deus Ex - Game of the Year Edition. been out a while and I never did get round to playing it so I picked it up. I'll let you know if it's any good some time in the future.
But mainly... AUDIOSURF! :D WOW! Ok, it's already well established that I love music. Audiosurf takes that love one step further. Simply point it towards any track on your computer and the game will analyze the song and build a racetrack that mirrors the song's rhythm. Slow parts will see uphill sections and fast parts go racing downhill with twists, turns and tunnels. And along this track you steer a little hovercraft, much like wipeout while the song plays in the background. It's so simple it's genius! But actually, slightly more complex than just that. Difficult to explain but easy it view, here are two videos. The first shows standard mode to the song Chop Suey by SOAD. The goal is to arrange the coloured blocks in patterns of three or more to score points. The second is Mono mode, Shotgun Blues by Guns n Roses. In mono mode the goal is to collect all coloured blocks, whilst hitting none of the grey blocks. All in all it's addictive as hell and available NOW on Steam for £5.99 ($9.99). Even if you're too poor to afford that frankly awesome price tag Steam also has a free demo of the game. :D
Oh and did I mention each song has a global scoreboard, allowing to compare your scores against the world, your country or even just your Audiosurf friends? My username is Charonicus so if you get it, add me! I'll take you on. ^^
Regular mode.
Mono mode
And I'm done for now. Got plenty more to do today. Now stop being strangers and leave me comments damn you!
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hmm... i am still an avid reader of your blog. It is just that i haven't anything clever to add right now. I haven't seen those movies yet but as far i read the reviews of "Antichrist" are quite controversy. Some say it is "The Shit", others say it is totally overrated and over the top. *shrugs*. One commentator on IMDB said it has similarities in terms of photography like Andrew Tarkowsky's "Stalker" which i like.
ReplyDeleteHmmm other than that... What else to say?
Ah one thing i noticed: It is still there. The Curse of the german Nazi cliché in Englishmen's brains i guess. Me as being a german dude it is just sickening to read those English vs. German WW2 shit over and over again. It is everywhere. Counterstrike 2, BF2, whatever... Is it that fascinating? Why can't we live on now after 60 years? Two generations has passed and alot of those war veterans are dead now. We learn it in school history lessons over and over until we vomit our past out... then some jews come over and throw it in our faces again. I KNOW IT BY NOW.
Oh well. If other countries would deal with their horrible past the same serious way it might be different i guess. How about Israel dealing with the Arabs today? Haven't they learned anything from their own past? First they were victims, now they act the same F***** way towards the palestenians. *huffs*
Okay so much rambling from my side. Sorry i had to vent this.
Ches. (the guy that hates stereotypes)
Well, I think it's fair to say that the majority of us have moved on and don't view current Germany as a country full of Nazis. :P
ReplyDeleteBut as for letting it lie. It's never going to happen! WWII for all its horrificness was an amazing period of world history. For a start, necessity is the mother of invention and look at all the things invented due to the war. If the war hadn't happened, would we have made the huge leaps in aviation for example? I'm not condoning it of course, but the simple fact was that when faced with annihiliation, lots of shit gets done, FAST.
Then there's other aspects of what I like to think of as historically fascinating areas of the war. Think of WWI and the efforts made to crack the enigma machine. The whole thing is interesting, coming from the perspective of an amateur codebreaker. Then there's the russian snipers from WWII, another area I find intriguing. Have you seen Enemy at the Gates? It's awesome! Or played Call of Duty?
And then there's the cultural symbolism. The nazis will always be remembered for two very distinctive symbols. The swastika, a twisted representation of an existing African good luck symbol, and their incredibly charismatic yet odd looking leader, Hitler himself, whose name alone will stand out for ever. Never again will a German man be able to bear that surname without the resulting stigma.
When something impacts the world that much you can understand it taking some time to wear off.
As for it being forgotten. That should never happen! If anything it should be remembered to avoid anything like that from reoccurring. Kids these days need to remember that the world has stood on the brink of destruction and survived.
I can see how you, as a German, must be annoyed. After all, it's certainly not your fault that your country, twice in its past, got a little, shall we say, overexcited at the notion of conquest and that it executed its plans in such a grandiose fashion that it kinda overshadows every other military conflict in history, but lets not forget that all countries have bizarre military madness in their past. We Brits didn't sit idly by all our lives. The British conquered half the globe to produce an empire with lasting effects. I saw a fascinating documentary on how English country changed the face of India and let us not forget that terrible black slavery idea. :S Not exactly a clever move. And for once, that wasn't the German's fault! :P
The point is, it happened. And to forget that would be a tad foolish I think. As for stereotypes. I believe the traditional German stereotypes has you wearing leiderhosen, eating Bratwurst and being extremely industrious. :P Nothing like German efficiency, as proved by it being one of the few countries managing to weather the recession quite well. And if not for the war, we wouldn't have the stereotype of the sleazy frenchman wearing onions, riding a bicyclette with a baguette under one arm, ready to surrender at a moment's notice! :D
Seriously, a sense of humour is necessary. Stereotypes are supposed to be comical for the most part.
Oh and wargames. Personally I prefer the more modern Terrorist Vs Counterterrorist style of Counterstrike over the WWII style Call of Duty, Battlefield 1942, Day of Defeat etc games but there are plenty out there who do enjoy games set in that era. As an era of military history, as I already pointed out, it had some of the more fascinating inventions in terms of weaponry and vehicles.
That's all I can think of for now. At least you can rest happy knowing you proved Godwin's Law correct quite quickly. :P Let me know if you want to hear any more on the subject, (I imagine you don't).
That should read "On how English CULTURE changed the face of India".
ReplyDeleteAs an addition. I think the reason WWII is so popular in gaming is that it easily has two distinct opposing forces. England Vs Germany (Even though the war involved a lot more countries). Did you know Finland fought both on the side of the Germans, before turning on them and kicking an immense amount of arse for such a small country? Seriously. The statistics for Finland during WWII are unbelievable and rather scary. They lost barely any of their own troops and killed German soldiers in their thousands and spookily... thousands more were simply reported missing. MISSING! What the hell did they do to them? You should read up on Finland's part in the war, it's interesting. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Two distinct sides. A kind of clear cut, goodies vs baddies. You have the familiarity of being a Brit, with the rounded helmet, a thompson machine gun, etc. And then the baddies are themed with their german named weapons like the awesome sounding Panzerfaust. (An anti tank rocket launcher for those that don't speak German). Panzer is an awesome word. And those stick grenades. What are those called? Stielhandgranate? Yeah. I mean surely just the fact that it can be discussed in so much depth makes you realise the historical value of it all?
You may be sick of English people harping on about WWII but do you imagine perhaps that maybe the Japanese feel the same way every time the Americans make yet another film about Pearl Harbour? Or the Vietnam war? It won't be very long before our children's children have this same discussion about Britain's involvement in Iraq! Will we and America be tarred with that same brush that painted Germany in such a bad light? Perhaps.
I would also like to point out that my knowledge of German history does not only extend to WWII. I'm also aware that you had a nice big wall that was destroyed, uniting Germany into one big country that until the rise of the Euro, had a currency almost as strong as our own pound sterling. And also that one year in the 90s we played you at football, only to lose on penalties when Gareth Southgate took his shot and your keeper saved it. :P
So there. :D
Oh and also. While we're talking about positive contributions. Germany has made great contributions to the world of metal music! With their distinctively heavy sound that seems to have vacated most other parts of Europe you can still count on germany to produce some raw and powerful music. (Iron Savior, Powergod). After all, Germany is the country to bring us Hansi Kursch! Metal Legend!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansi_Kürsch
Ok I'm done ranting. :P I'll check back in the morning to see whether you're pissed off or coming round to the idea that being German ain't all that bad. ^^
Oh. here are those finland statistics. Check this out.
ReplyDeletehttp://beerlake.net/dump/finland.jpg
It was the Russians they pwned, not the Germans. But just look. FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND soldiers MISSING! :O
And that was with them outnumbered, 6 to 1 on men and with a mere 30 tanks to fend off over 6000 russian ones. They had 30 tanks and yet somehow managed to destroy over 2'500 russian tanks. Doesn't that just boggle the mind? :S
Since you took your time to give me a detailed response to my comment i will do that too. For now i am still too tired to voice clear arguments.
ReplyDeleteCheck up your blog later this evening or tomorrow.
I try to address all your points you made, promised. :)
C.
:P Ok I'll look out for it.
ReplyDelete