William Shatner's Face

Here's a reprint of The Guardian's report on the famous War of the Worlds hoax that Orson Welles pulled off sixty-five years ago today. Brilliant. And to prove that not much has changed, here's a more recent story along the same lines.
Yesterday, I jokingly called for a boycott of Google. If this goes ahead, I may indeed boycott the search engine.
On a happier note, those who can't get to a pumpkin and an obscenely sharp knife today may want to have a look at this virtual pumpkin carver. God bless Ben and Jerry. Or at least the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate that owns them. The company, that is, not the people, although nothing would surprise me in this crazy world.

Competition: Anyone who knows why this post has that particualr title should comment or email me with the answer by Monday. All correct answers may win a prize, but again, it's not likely.

Now I'm back off to bed, as last night's pizza did not agree with me. Oh the pain! The horror!

Vampire Babies And Female Footballers

Somehow, it seems appropriate that this tale of toddler bloodsuckers comes from eastern Europe, where all the best vampire stories come from. Utterly bizarre, this seems like a scene from a horror story, but it actually happened, and the two lines devoted to it in this week's Newsweek were the best thing about the mediocre magazine.

Courtney will be pleased by this story about the first female player to join a professional "men's" football team, and I'm looking forward to seeing Tom's thoughts on it, as he's a bit of a footie guru. I think it's a very good sign that there have been no problems so far concerning the rules of the game - it seems that it's perfectly legal to field mixed teams, just that no one's done it before.

Talking of sport, it seems that Electronic Arts have released a Quidditch simulator, in the style of their other successful sport games. Quite baffling.

Finally, I must request that all my readers boycott Google. Why? Well, just look at how they get their results. Shocking.

Astonishing Indeed

On the recommendation of Mr Regie Rigby, I paid my money and this morning received a copy of Garen Ewing's The Rainbow Orchid. Yes, it looks and feels lot like Tintin, but if you really think about it, that's not a bad thing at all. It's a slow burner. Apparently unconnected plot elements come together by the end of this first chapter, cleverly setting up the adventure to follow, and giving a really effective sense of escalating excitement. Top stuff, and I'd recommend getting a copy. It's a little pricey if you live outside Britain, but well worth it.
The Icewind Dale Box Set we bought came with what seems like thousands of discs, including one soundtrack audio CD. Normally, I'm a little suspicious of these things, remembering all too well the hideous soundtrack that came bundled with the SNES' Killer Instinct (because the at-the-time-revolutionary graphics took up so much memory and processor power that there was no music in the game). Also, video game soundtracks are rarely good enough to warrant the ability to listen to them outside the game.
(That said, I have a sizable collection of Amiga game music files, but Amiga games always did have the best music.)
I'm pleasantly surprised to find that the Icewind Dale soundtrack (as composed by Jeremy Soule) is quite impressive indeed. There are some stirring themes on there, and the music as a whole is of excellent quality. There's a Jerry Goldsmith feel to it all, and it wouldn't be at all out of place in a film. Computer game music really has come a long way in such a short time.
So, what are your favourite computer game tunes? Anyone? Anyone?

Anyone Know What "Corset Training" Is?

My old school chum Helen has a website to show off her Goth modelling ways. Apparently, she's been "corset training for some time now" whatever that means.
In other news, I am extremely busy. There's nothing major or important needing to be done, but there's lots of little things that need attending to, and it's the number, not size, of the tasks that's overwhelming. Time to put the videogames away for a day or two, methinks.

The flat smells like beef, because there's a stew cooking in the crock-pot. It's all very off-putting.

Admitting Defeat

I finished Eyes Of The Dragon, only to read on the very last page that two of the book's characters met up with Flagg again after the events of this book, and "confronted him". I suspect I will be getting the other Dark Tower books after all then...
I realised a funny little thing about Stephen King's books as I finished this one. I wanted to know that Flagg wasn't going to return to this book's world to cause any more trouble. I wanted to know how Thomas and Dennis fared when they met Flagg again.
In the Dark Tower books, the hero seems to be on a quest to destroy that world's Flagg. What I realised was that by making Flagg a threat to the characters and setting of all these other books, King has made the reader care for these people and hope that Flagg is defeated. If he'd gone on describing people and places only loosely connected to the Dark Tower quest and how they were threatened within the Dark Tower books, he may have threatened the pace of the main quest. As it is he's created these people and places elsewhere, in other books, where they can't hold up the narrative of the main quest but where they still add to its importance. Whether he did this deliberately or not (and I'm sure he did), I'm impressed.

I'm not sure if any of that made any sense...

The problem is that, just as with Alias' good over-arcing plots but weak individual episodes, I'd much rather know how King's universe all ties together without reading each and every book. I enjoyed Eyes Of The Dragon because it was a fun read, and I know that not every King book is fun to read. I had a similar problem with CrossGen's comics. Unlike shared universes in other comics, CrossGen's universe had a plot all of its own. The Marvel Universe doesn't progress as such, but CrossGen's does. Unfortunately, only a handful of their titles are worth reading, and most of these have little to do with the universal plot. The universal plot is rather fascinating, but it wasn't worth trawling through all the faff CrossGen puts out. Oh well.
My nose just made a noise like South American pan pipes. Must be time for bed.

Sometimes The World Is Neat

Old news, but still worth a mention. Bill Murray is to provide the voice for the CGI cat in the upcoming Garfield movie. Why is this neat? Well the voice of Garfield in the only-good-thing-on-CITV-apart-from-Knightmare-animated show was provided by Lorenzo Music, who also voiced Peter Venkman in The Real Ghostbusters. Peter Venkman was portrayed by Bill Murray (ta-daa!) in the 1984 Ghostbusters film.
Well, I was impressed.

It's been a long time...

So...Intolerable Cruelty then. Well, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it was the mildest, most accessible, and least offbeat film the Coens have done, and as such, there was a tiny feeling of blandness there, but not too much. The performances were superb, especially Clooney (who should play Reed Richards in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie. Really.), the Welsh Bird (not bad at all, and of course looks spectacular throughout), and Billy Bob Thornton (who is almost always excellent and will most likely be the only good thing about The Alamo). Clooney really was superb, perfectly capturing the quirky aspect needed in the performance, and showing hitherto-unseen skill in cartoonesque, rubberfaced, reactions. He really was very impressive, and this performance alone makes up for ER and all those awful early films of his.
Geoffrey Rush, however, was pretty bad, and I can't tell if it was the character or him, which is the only reason he gets away with it.
The script was also excellent, as was to be expected, and the film made use of that Fargo trick of having an epic orchestral soundtrack playing over rather mundane (albeit offbeat) events. Like Fargo, but unlike Pacino's Carlito's Way, it worked very well. The living-dead senior lawyer was a wonderful creation, and again Clooney was excellent in the scenes opposite him.
But the real joy, and the reason that my friend Courtney should see this film, is that it features a cameo by the greatest living American movie star.

I'm currently reading Stephen King's Eyes Of The Dragon. I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, although I'm not entirely sure that it really works as a kids' book, which was apparently the intention, as one of King's kids pointed out that he'd never written a book they could read. I gave up on further Dark Tower volumes as I really wasn't grabbed enough by the first book. Maybe another time.

Icewind Dale entertains. It's very much a stripped down Baldur's Gate II, and drops a lot of the successful elements of that game, like the fact that the playable characters are all created by yourself, so there are no character-specific plots or dialogues to access. As such, there is a very generic feel, and it feels more like a game than Baldur's Gate II did. That said, it plays in a more streamlined and less clunky way than the other game. But it's good fun, and the fact that I got Icewind Dale, Heart Of Winter and Icewind Dale II all in one pack means that I shall be busy for a while...

In terms of artistic achievement, I've done lots more in the way of sketches and designs and roughs, but no final pieces as yet, unfortunately.

Ye gods, it's Goth Week at the BBC. Don't encourage them, they'll only multiply...
(But on the other hand, look who's presenting the Goth documentary)

The most recent issue of Marvel's Avengers was rubbish. This was the issue that Marvel hyped up with promises of superhero sex and rape, and that it was going to get a "Mature Readers" tag. It's as pathetic, naive and stupid as I expected, although they wisely toned down the more tasteless elements before publishing it. This issue was characterised by terrible art, inconsistent characterisation, a frankly laughable plot and setting, and a really foolish attempt at creating interest in a title that's being run into the ground by a writer with the writing abilities of a spastic baboon. Bugger off back to DC you tit.

>ahem<

As a result, the best Avengers comic last week was the JLA/Avengers crossover. Even if Superman beat Thor, and that just doesn't happen...
The most recent Amazing Spider-Man, the double-sized special #500, was absolutely superb, however. Gave me tingles it did, but I grew up on Spidey, so maybe it's just me.

Finally, a complaint that ties in with the title of this post. Enterprise is pretty naff, but endearing in its own naffness. One of the things that saves it from being completely disregarded is the disasterous dad-rock theme tune. The sheer audacity of producing such an awful theme tune has to be applauded, and the song is legendary round our way. And of course, the Enterprise people have decided that the reason that no one watchs the show is because the theme tune is embarrassing (personally, the theme tune is the main reason to watch the show), so they've changed it.
A little more joy has gone out of the world.

Sorry to end on a downer there. Hey, Brighton are doing well!

Right, that'll do. There should be enough there to keep Courtney entertained at work, biLly entertained at home, and Meg entertained when she gets home from work. Now I'm off to make some ravioli. Yum!

"Go for the eyes Boo, go for the eyes!"

Finally, Baldur's Gate II is finished.
Right, Icewind Dale is next!
(As you can see, normal non-geeky service has yet to be resumed)
This might please Liam, as it means he can borrow the discs, but it might not please his other half, Courtney...
Incidentally, you should probably go to Liam's blog just to see the kind of thing his mum does with erotic fridge-magnet-poetry...
Not much else to report. I've been filling my sketchbook with stuff, all in preparation for a number of projects, but nothing is finalised yet. One of the projects sort-of-involves this fine figure of a gentleman.
We're off down to see the in-laws this weekend, with no obligation to babysit anyone's child, which is a refreshing and unique experience for us. Broadband internet and digital cable, combined with an array of new cartoons starting Saturday morning, means that I'll be cheery, at least!

"...to this end, they have relentlessly pursued them across the galaxy from planet Cybertron to planet Earth and back again..."

A bit of a geeky post this, as I've found a number of Transformers-related goodies. I'm sure normal, non-geeky, service will resume eventually.
You'll find a run down of the top fifty "pivotal" Transformers moments here and here, which is worth a look if you're into such things.
The best thing though is this. There's a live-action Transformers movie on its way, probably to be released in the ever-so-appropriate space year 2005. This isn't from that movie, but it's a wonderful example of how good it'll look if they do it properly.

IF YOU HAVE ANY FONDNESS FOR BIG GIANT ROBOTS AT ALL, YOU MUST SEE THIS CLIP!

Philip Pullman writes about Maus and comics in general here. Good publicity for the medium.

Fox and the WB Network are collaborating on a small-screen revival of Lost In Space, but they're not including Doctor Smith this time around! Foul! Foul, I say! He, and his bizarre fatherly/villainous interplay with young Will Robinson, was the best thing about the original series and the movie (which had excellent-to-this-day spaceship cgi, but the Doc Smith/Skeletor thing was awful), and it strikes me as a very risky move to write him out. It's like writing the serpent out of the Garden of Eden. Or something.
Incidentally, that's my bet for the next Indiana Jones movie: Indiana Jones and the Garden of Eden. Even if it's not the way things will turn out, I'm excited about it. My only fears about the film were that (1) Harrison Ford was too old, and (2) that George Lucas and/or Spielberg would ruin it by drenching it in bad cgi. Well, apparently the second fear has been laid to rest (but I still don't trust Lucas to not ruin it), and I saw Ford on the television promoting the new DVD set, dressed up in the Indy gear. The guy's 61, but whatever the make up people did to him, it worked. He looked like Indy again.

Dancing Sheep And Blood Cults...And A Quiz!

Many thanks to Kev, who pointed out the wonders of Annabelle the Sheep. If you have RealOne Player, put a CD in or load up an MP3, go to View>Choose Visualisation>Annabelle the Sheep, then sit back and enjoy. Lots of stuff happens, and it gets really crazy as night falls (you'll see what I mean). Annabelle seems to particularly enjoy Orbital's Funny Break (One is Enough), which shows excellent taste on her part.
Speaking, as it were, of Orbital, their new album/film score Octane was released this week. It's a pretty good release, full of classic-but-new Orbital sounds. Also, unlike the duo's previous score, Event Horizon, this is recognisably Orbital, with no watering down of their sound. There are some tracks available for download at the official site. Initiation is the track that will sound most familiar to Orbital fans, sounding like something from the Green Album crossbred with sounds from later albums. And there is to be a single release of this track, which is excellent news.
As for the film itself, the premise is quirky and strange, sort of Grant Morrison doing a road trip movie with vampires in it, while reading David Lynch For Dummies. Apparently it all falls apart a bit towards the end, but I like the ideas (the Jacob's Ladder effect-great ideas, but the film was a little "blah"). Out on the 14th of November in Blighty, and the transAtlantic success of 28 Days Later... may see Octane pop up over here outside the film festival circuit.
I'm sure there was a vampire/road trip movie a year or so ago, filled with generic teen TV "stars", that disappeared quietly without a trace, but I can't remember the name. Answers on a postcard, email, or in the Comments box, please. Winning entries may receive a prize, but frankly it's a bit unlikely.