Sunday 27 July 2008

Crafts, Joss. It's a match made in heaven...

Some of you who straddle both the geek and craft camps will be aware that craft site Crochet Me is trying to score an interview with Joss Whedon, following the Great One's off-the-cuff comments in a recent Wired blog chat about his promotional work for "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" extending to a 'sexy photoshoot with 'Crocheting Monthly'.

Kim Werker over at Crochet Me is, therefore, trying to grab an interview with the Joss and who are we not to help a fellow geek crafter in their endeavours?

Go check out the latest info on her campaign, why don't you?

Friday 25 July 2008

Mahalo Daily, Felicia Day, make with the clicking...

If you follow the Joss, you'll know who Felicia Day is.

"Buffy" alum, "Dr Horrible"s true love and creator/star of the superlative web series, "The Guild", Felicia is quite the geek's geek. And "Mahalo Daily" have an interview with her today...

Ain't Love Grand?

Or, to put it another way, Devendra Banhart's new vid "Carmensita", with extended cameo from his lady love, Natalie Portman.

Sweet...

An oldie but a goodie...



Squee! Squee!

I am not a number...

...I am the new remake of "The Prisoner".

Thursday 24 July 2008

Dollhouse updateage

If you know us, you'll know that we love Joss Whedon.

How can you not, frankly?

So, naturally we worry when we read about minor issues like the "Dollhouse" pilot being reshot - whilst many fans will be freaked out and buying into the idea that Fox are already going to cancel this show before it airs, I'm more inclined to let the thing air and then worry.

Cripes - I'm getting sensible in my old age.

It isn't necessarily "Firefly" all over again, for pity's sake...

Don't mess it up, Chris

Depending on where you happen to be on our splendid planet, you'll be able to see the new "X-Files" movie this weekend - in the US - or you'll have to wait a while for it show up at your Enormoplex.

I find myself sadly all too keen to renew my nerdly relationship with the Files of X and, as I chew my fingernails to the quick whilst trying to sniff out advance screenings, I present this excellent Onion AV Club interview with the one, the only, the glorious Gillian Anderson.

Did you miss us?

Hello there.

We're back. Been away, you know - summer holidays and all that.

More updates to follow - with the pictures you've come to expect - but suffice is to say that:

1) Iceland is gorgeous and reassuringly expensive...

2) The Faroe Islands are damp, but charming with it

3) Beautiful downtown Bergen, in Norway, is a fine place to spend a leisurely Monday in July.

Let's just talk about those prices, though, for a second - living in 'Rip-Off Britain' isn't quite the bind that it seemed to be before spending an extended period of time in Scandanavia.

Honestly - I don't know how they manage it...

Thursday 10 July 2008

Cannes 2009, anybody?

New York magazine appear to have gotten their greasy mitts on one of the copies of the new Tarantino script, "Inglorious Bastards" which went out to the studios this week.

It looks like a doozy...

I love You Tube



Because it lets me watch Curve videos...

For Dom and all the folks on the fourth floor...



Be sure and miss me whilst I'm gone...

We're off..

...for a little while.

Play nice whilst we're gone and enjoy the best thing that I've seen on the Internets this week.

IamChris4Life 100%-ing "Through The Fire & Flames" by Dragon Force from "Guitar Hero 3 - Legends of Rock".



Suffice is to say that this achievement deserves your attention.

Man's a nutcase...

Tuesday 8 July 2008

The Dark Knight returns. Sort Of. After A Fashion.

The corners of the internets habituated by yours truly have gone chuckle-wild and are presently LOL-ing themselves into gibbering piles of Geek over this splendidly absurd fake "Batman" script credited to everyone's least favourite A-list hack, Michael Bay.

As a glimpse at what many dwellers of the geek realm would recoil from in horror, it's certainly worth a read.

I laughed, I chuckled, but found it somewhat lacking as a pastiche - having said that, though, the bit about "we'll hack the Internets" was surely torn from an early draft of "Armageddon").

Saturday 5 July 2008

And since I'm linking to videos...

...I would be remiss if I didn't mention Channel Four's excellent promo video for their upcoming Stanley Kubrick season.

Hosted via the Guardian newspaper's website, it's a minute of splendidness to rival Scorsese's
ace Hitchcock homage from last Christmas for Spanish drink brand Freixenet.

And after you've watched those two, how about taking a look at Wes Anderson's American Express campaigns on You Tube?

As Rolling Eyeballs bloody loves Kevin Smith, here's a link to one of his Panasonic ads (Rolling Eyeballs also LOVES Panasonic, would happily proclaim so in public and selflessly volunteers to evaluate one of their new Profile 2.0 BD players...).

In the spirit of muck-raking and merrimental juxtaposition, here's a glance at why Tim Burton doesn't direct too many commercials...

Finally, a flat-out classic Apple ad from Ridley Scott...

Inexplicable RTD video of the day

This is the first (and quite possibly last) time that I'll be posting a video from "This Morning".

But, you know, the content justifies it.  Particularly at around 5 minutes and 20 seconds in.

Mouth zipped, just watch it...

Friday 4 July 2008

Universal's first crop of Blu Ray discs

With props to Don Lindrich's Sound Advice blog (and the good peeps at AV Forums), here's the heads-up on Universal's first Blu-Ray releases.

Followers of the HD format battle will appreciate the significance of this product release as they were the staunchest supporters of the already much-missed HD format.

Let's just hope that Uni's region coding-free, feature-rich disc philosophy survives the transition from Red to Blu disc releases...

The Toxic Twins! Live in your Front Room! Sort Of!

Must resist. Urge to rock. Resolve weakening...

And in today's edition of "Chicken or Egg?" digest...

Musings, over at PS3 Fanboy, on whether Blu-Ray is the wagging tail or - egad - the dog itself. We can debate this one until the DualShock 3 shows up in the EC, but my feelings are that the do-everything-pretty-well-except-boast-good-games nature of the platform is the only stumbling block between this PlayStation iteration and total domination. Well, that and the cost, but things were ever thus.

Once the Sony software portfolio has those elusive AAA titles (we have MGS4, anticipate Little Big Planet eagerly and are bored of waiting for the arrival of GT5 and Resi 5), it'll be a battle between Microsoft and Nintendo for second place.

Or will Nintendo jump keep steamrollering the competition improbably with their last gen tech?

Stranger things, and all that...(with props to High-Def Digest)

Put your money where your mouth is

An interesting post over at I09 today, which excerpts a speech given by the BBC's Head of Fiction Jane Tranter, as she lauds not only the richly deserving "Doctor Who" showrunner, Russell T. Davies but Tim Kring's equally engaging US drama, "Heroes" for their risk-taking and speculative scope.

Fine words, but we don't necessarily seem to be reaping the benefits of this praise in our TV schedules, now, do we?

Given the choice between a speculative fiction pilot which might require a degree of sell over and above that of a normal show, and a more instant cop/legal/hospital drama with James Nesbitt or Tamzin Outhwaite, I think we know what the BBC would probably gravitate towards.

Indeed, given the relative under performance of ITV's expensive import, "Pushing Daisies" and the somewhat lacklustre second season of "Primeval", it's difficult to see that network straying far from it's staple diet of drearily predictable, dourly realist drama and comedy.

Yes, "Doctor Who" has been a huge hit, and "Heroes" has done a nifty job of getting almost as much attention, but they are still very much the exception in our TV schedules.

Is this a budgetary issue - Tim Kring's scale of production values don't come cheap, after all - or, as I rather more suspect, are we seeing a case of most TV decision makers having blinkers firmly affixed when it comes to commisioning SF, Fantasy and Horror on their channels?

SF doesn't have to equal ruinously expensive CG or impenetrable jargon - Steven Moffat's "Blink" is by some way one of the best new-"Who" episodes, and doesn't have huge set-pieces to set the accountant's hearts-a-flutter. The stock-in-trade there was character and concepts - two abstracts which are unlikely to be successfully created on a render farm of souped-up Macs just yet.

If networks cling to this notion that anything which doesn't get 10 million viewers from the outset is subject to immediate cancellation or, worse, banishment to the late night schedule hinterlands, we're never going to find anything worth watching on TV and will slowly leave it to wither and flounder in a sea of ever-decreasing reality pablum and generic procedural dramas so identikit that they make "Dixon of Dock Green" look like "The Wire".

Chuck, Big Red FTW

In a word? Sweet.

Wednesday 2 July 2008

For Microsoft gamers only

An interesting post over at Platform Nation, which posits one gamer's vision of a better-looking, easily-navigable interface to replace the now somewhat-clunky system blades which greet you as you boot up your 360.

Let's hope the right people are reading...

The single best thing that I read today...

Courtesy of Cinematical, comes a truly heartwarming story of how Robot-lovin' geekery can sometimes get you to the places that you want to go.

And the trailer had pretty much the same effect on me, too, FYI.

If "Wall-E" isn't the bestest best best thing ever, I'll eat your hat...

Of handlebar mustaches, Victorian manners and steam-powered wonder...

The wonderful Ms Boo pointed our browser in the direction of "The Steampunk Workshop", and I'm so happy that she did.

Me love Steampunk Keyboard and LCD monitor.  Me want now.

They don't know when to give up...

As most people weren't even aware that there had been a High Definition format war, I suppose that this story won't really be a source of too much concern.

For those of us who have been there, bought the now-defunct player and are cursing the fact that a BS-driven vapourware solution won the battle, the contents of the above link will provide either an awestruck, disbelieving look to the heavens or a hearty chuckle.

As the tech seems to rely heavily on a more robust broadband internet than we actually have at present, it will be interesting to see if this Toshiba initiative crashes and burns like HD-DVD (sob) or hangs around long enough to compete with Blu-Ray for your hard-earned pennies...

Tuesday 1 July 2008

Quick bits and/or bobs

Over on AICN, Moriarty reviews - in best, BOGOF fashion, two of the summer's more eagerly-anticipated comic book adventures, "Hellboy 2 - The Golden Army" and "The Dark Knight".

Whilst over in the realms of gaming, this week's downloadable tracks for Rock Band skew towards Motley Crue, with three tracks from bands on their rolling festival jaunt, Crue Fest.

Far more exciting, for this avowed Eighties guitar geek, is the news that Guitar Hero 3's DLC for the July 4th US holiday is "Top Gun Anthem", from everybody's favourite slab of knuckleheaded US agitprop.  Click for more big-haired, squealy-squawky whammy bar abuse (with props to the good people at Kotaku).

After yesterday's reveal of the new "Quantum of Solace" trailer - every bit as bad ass as you might have hoped for - comes early dish on Activision's video game spin-off, which apparently uses Infinity Ward's "Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare" engine during the game's FPS moments.

In yer non-gaming blather, this is a fricking sweet shirt if every I saw one.

And for comics heads, here's a page from Warren Ellis' first issue of the post-Whedon "Astonishing X-Men".  Tree-based Wolverineism?  Nice...

Whereas the nice peeps at I09 drag us back to the present and bring the new comics as ever on a Tuesday - anybody standing in the way of my picking up the new "Buffy Season 8" on Thursday is gonna know about it, dig?

And, as ever, Uwe Boll FTW...

Tutorial Tuesday

I’ve seen “Make it Monday” and “Fat Quarter Friday” in my blogging travels, so I thought I’d try “Tutorial Tuesday”. A place where I can post my own tutorials (if I every get round to writing any) or point people in the direction of fun tutorials I have come across.


This is a really cool tutorial for Bottlecap Pin Cushions by Jen Segrest, I especially like the eyeball variation (what a surprise).