So busy

I'm sorry blog, I have neglected you. Truth is I haven't had much time to write about things recently but you can sure expect an update about my travels to Japan. I leave next week, Yen at the ready.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll post a blog every couple of days while I'm out there. We'll see...

Watchmans

Waiting outside the restrooms of the Odeon, Guildford, I overheard a phone conversation:

"...we're at the Guildford Odeon. We're seeing Watchmans, or something or other. It's about...something or other..."

The film the lady was referring to, was Watchmen. Directed by Zack Snyder and based on the 80s comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. I heard of Watchmen completely through word of mouth, or be that, word of podcast. I've been known to overwhelm myself with hours of video game and 'geek culture' podcasts each week and it's only natural that Watchmen would be brought up in conversation with its pending cinema release. I'm usually quite susceptible when it comes to things like this so when I came across the comic book conveniently placed (for the consumer within me) in HMV I picked up a copy. That was last weekend, I finished reading Friday morning and that afternoon I went to see the movie.

The first twenty minutes of the movie were strangely emotional. Seeing the characters I had earlier seen in ink on paper, moving as living, breathing, real people on a huge cinema screen was oddly exciting. I thought this quite strange to have such a feeling, especially since I had watched the trailers for this movie over and over. It's when the story really started to kick in that I found myself slightly pulled out of that experience however.

It's hard to judge a movie that's so closely based on a book, especially one that I had finished reading a few hours before. I knew the plot, I knew each scene, so it was hard to tell if the movie was good or not straight away. There were some changes made to the movie, of course I expected changes for a motion picture, but the violent and gratuitous nature of them seemed less meaningful than in the comic book. The ending was changed, which was probably a wise decision considering the far-fetched nature of the turn of events in the comic book. I think this much better suited the big screen.

I've had a few days to think about it now and I think Watchmen is a great movie. The actor playing Rorschach put on a particularly pleasing performance and the recreation of the Watchmen universe created by Moore and Gibbons over twenty years ago was faithful and highly enjoyable. I would normally recommend reading the source material before seeing a film adaption, but in this case I don't deem it entirely necessary. I think a fresh perspective on the Watchmen movie would be perfectly healthy.

I don't have the authority to give the film a grade or score. Instead, I give you my estimated dong to boob ratio of 10:1

Skate history blog delayed

I give you this for the time being

So about that skateboarding blog...

My absence from this blog is soul crushing, I know. I'm working on a post at the moment: my skateboarding history, although it's taking far longer to write than I had thought so it will probably be the weekend by the time I actually finish. Until then, I give you my possible future set-up. I'm going to buy a new skateboard when I get back from Japan and this is what I've decided on so far:

Someone has been watching Jerry Hsu videos right? I liked those trucks instantly, before I had even heard of Hsu, gotta get a deck to match right? Not sure which bearings I'm going to go with. Budget is £20, thinking Bones Reds or something... any suggestions? I will try post my skateboarding history sometime this weekend. Until then, over and out.

Pile of Shame

I have started a new list to the right hand side of this blog to publicly display the games that I have either not started playing, or have only played for less than half an hour when really I know I should have played them all the way through. Yakuza is something I know I will enjoy, I'm a total Japanophile and this game is set in Tokyo so I'm sure to get all doughy eyed playing it like I do when I watch Lost in Translation. I probably would have played Super Mario Galaxy more if it didn't look so awful on my television. Even when using the 'Official Nintendo Component Cable' it still doesn't look very nice on a high def set. I will have to get over this petty graphical gripe because from what I've heard Galaxy is one of the best Wii games out there. This list will get longer and it will get harder to wipe games off: Games are coming so thick and fast that it's hard to dedicate a decent amount of time to each and every game I want to play. I still haven't even managed to pick up a Playstation 3. £300 isn't something I can drop so easily in such an uncertain time for the economy, but boy that Santa Sackboy costume in LittleBigPlanet is soooo alluring. 

NENDOROID GET - Gatchapin

A friend of mine recently got back from Tokyo and brought back with her a nice new Nendoroid for me. Gatchapin, from a certain Japanese television series (my minimal understanding of Katakana fails to bring you the title in English), cost less than ¥2000 from Amazon JPN. I'm not really pleased with the photo I have up on Flickr, perhaps I will update this page when I take a better one. Have a look at the Good Smile Company website to see all the other great figures they make.

Fable II - Signed

Lionhead Studios recently released their latest and greatest action-rpg, sequel to the original multi million selling Xbox game, Fable II. I have a very bad habit of buying the Limited Edition version of games and Fable II was not going to escape the custom. Originally, the Fable II LE was a bit more interesting than the LE that was eventually released. Disappointed by the lack of little extras that might somehow validate spending £10 extra, I decided to make my Fable II Limited Edition even more 'limited'. Luckily for me, I have a very kind neighbour who happens to work for Lionhead Studios. He agreed to get a few 'paw prints' on my Fable II cover from some of the team that actually worked on the game and yesterday I received it back through my letterbox. I'm quite pleased with the result, my copy of Fable II is without a doubt a limited edition now, living the rest of its life on my already cramped shelf of Xbox games...not eBay.