It's a Hugh Jackman movie where he gets to dealing with fighting and CGI creations... and it's not X-men!
To quote the movie summary from the Readings website: A future-set story where robot boxing is a popular sport and centered on a struggling promoter (Jackman) who thinks he's found a champion in a discarded robot. During his hopeful rise to the top, he also discovers he has an 11-year-old son who wants to know his father.
Scanning... struggling promoter... 11-year-old son... yeah, I think we can see where this movie is going. And to be honest, this movie didn't see a predictable movie plot point it didn't like. All too often I was predicting what was going to happen... and there it was!
Fortunately, there is robot fighting! Because movies about human boxers just end up with the unpleasant sight of two thugs beating the crap out of each other, so let's show robots beating the fluid out of each other! And the fights are good. To be honest, if someone said "Yeah, we built those robots, and they really did that"... well, I wouldn't believe them, but this movie does make one wish it was true.
Hugh Jackman gets it easy in this movie as a deadbeat dad. Because he isn't all that deadbeat. He strikes up an immediately nice (if dickish) relationship with Dakota Goya. And there's Evangeline Lilly to round out the family unit. Yes, there's the predictable moment where that predictable plot point happens, but he spins around so quickly you would hardly believe they bothered. (And the other star of the movie is... product placement! Just count the occurrences!)
Watch this movie for the enjoyable robot fighting. Miss it for everything else.
[END]
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Reel Steal
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Vigil the Huntering
After Sunday in my shop I turn to some domestic chores. However, at one point I get contacted by Robert who wants to know if I have lead boxes, or am willing to melt down bullets to form said boxes. I hang up on him.
He wants to put the amulet in a lead box, so goes buys some fishing sinkers, then heads over to the doctor's house, suspecting he's been followed. However, when he gets there, the doctor's just arriving to find his house is open, so they call the police. While waiting, they play catch 'em with the follower, to find out its a reporter from the paper. After not convincing her of their stories about the train situation, she leaves, and the doctor decides to go ahead and enter his house. It's been ransacked, presumably for the amulet. Not wanting to stay there, they decide to come bother me, and use my tools to make an actual box. More annoyingly, they want to stay at my place for the night.
Meantime, JB gets back from his night of tagging to find large goons waiting for him. He does a runner, but is quickly chased down by one goon, and a fight ensues. A rather one sided fight, as the goon is more powered that JB expected, even given the train situation. He's taken to a room somewhere, where a voice, who claims to be the owner of the club Travesty, wants a word with all of us and invites us to come over Monday night for information sharing. (Tricky, as we don't know anything.) JB is taken back home, but decides the best plan is to wake us up and tell us this straight away.
Fortunately, we do get some sleep that night, and Monday sees me back in my gun shop, with another outing planned for the night. The only question is... do I arrange to have back up handy?
[END]
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Back to School
Me am learning fings. Recently, Stanford University announced running online courses for people all over the world. (Not for a degree or anything, you get a certificate of "could have passed this if they were an actual student".) Partly as an experiment to see how it works. One popular class is on Artificial Intelligence. Another is on Machine Learning. Both fine courses.
I did think about taking all of them. However, since I don't know what the workload will be like, and want to start simple, and hopefully they will be offering this again (they've already got everything set up, so they should be able to), I went for something relevant to my work. I'm taking Introduction to Databases.
At the moment, one big project that I'm working on is going through a lot of design stages and building stuff, all related to databases, and I'm interacting a lot with IT architects and developers and such. While they are great at explaining themselves when they need to, it can only help if I can follow along when they start getting technically. Especially as it impacts on the work I'm doing (everyone needs to interact with databases for their jobs).
So far, I've done my first batch of assignments already! Woo! I'm on my way!
If you're interesting, you might still be able to get in on a course or two (or three), so take a look.
[END]
Monday, 3 October 2011
DW: 6.13
So, that's it. Everything is over. Obviously, spoilers in this review. I will say that I didn't pick that question. I went for the philosophical bent of "Why is there something instead of nothing?", which is an interesting question and indeed might bring silence if the answer is "there isn't." But, spoilers here, that's not the way Moffat went.
Okay, let's get two things out of the way. The obvious out (at least, the obvious possible out) was signalled in the 'Previously On' bit, so it was only waiting to see which option Moffat picked. And... yeah, kind of disappointing that it was an out at all. We knew there would be some cheat, but that really is cheating (just as if it was Ganger Doctor). Of course, we need to go back at watch the first episode again with the knowledge it's Tessa-Doctor, and also see if anything about the alternative reality is played out in their reactions (which presumedly Amy and Rory are carrying around with them... including when they find out River is their daughter... which they know from the alt-version... wait a minute, is that a major contiunity blunder?).
And speaking of the alt-version, this brings up point number two: the whole episode is padding. It is simply a whole episode stall between 'the Doctor's going to die' and 'it was a robot all along'. If it hadn't happened, nothing different would turn out. It's only minor elements of knowledge (Amy killed whatshernameitsnotKavorkian - which doesn't come up again - and River learns the Doctor's 'name') that come out... indeed, the Silence and Kavorkian are still around (as hinted at the end)... dear gods Moffat, will you just end an arc already!!!!
But, at the end of the day, was it a good watch... not really, no, because I realised it was padding, we knew the robot was an option, and the wedding was pants (River has still only kissed the Doctor once, and it wasn't then).
And does this mean next year will still dangle the question/Silence over our heads for the entire run?
Next time: Christmas! With Amy and Rory? Or River?
[END]
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Of Steam, Steel and Murder
Back in Metapol, and it's an unpleasent scene. There've been executions under the cover of riots, as the families of the Engineers have been "dealt with". We can't be having with that. But as we get back we find some other changes, the police carry guns, and the gorillas aren't skulking any more...
Huzzah, back in Metapol! But it's an all new Metapol. We continue to argue about what to do, and surprisingly manage to do something. Not the raid on Ape Central... but we do get some action, and Gavin shows off his new Stunt!
Check out Game 43. And, yes, I managed to record it this time! Rapidshare and Hotfile.
[END]
Walking through Wellington
Because I could, I took a video of the walk I take every other week from my place to where I RPG. We just started daylight savings, so the sun is setting, but not yet. Previously, when I tried to make a video it was decently night and everything looked brilliant lit up, however the battery failed. If it's still on half a year from now, I might take another video of the trip at night.
Warning: the Flip video claims to have image stabilisation. This is what's known in the industry as a "lie", and the picture bounces all over the place while I'm walking. There isn't anything I can do about that.
Also see topical videos of car tooting to celebrate the RWC, part 1 and part 2.
[END]
Saturday, 1 October 2011
TW: First Born
Next up, Gwen and Rhys and the baby makes three. In First Born by James Goss. [In his Acknowledgements, James thanks RTD for advice about breastfeeding... I really do not want to know more about that conversation...]
Gwen and Rhys are hiding out with baby Anwen, and they are doing so in the isolated village of Rawbone. The inhabitants want children, but have none of their own. Instead they have Scions. ...and that's stretched out over 200 pages. The last 50 pages pretends to have something happen, but it's resolved without anyone needing to do anything, least of all the supposed heroes of the story.
Which, as you might be able to guess, is the problem. Very little happens in this book, and most of the story is around Gwen and Rhys dealing with Anwen. Which doesn't make for exciting reading. And yet... it is most of the book! And the village (for story reasons) is all about Anwen too!
I don't think James is a first time father when he wrote this, but it wouldn't take much to convince me of it. Clearly he enjoyed writing this book far more than I did reading it.
[END]
