You may have noticed this rather dramatic image. However don’t fear, I’m not acting out for the attention (well, at least not anymore than normal). It’s just a little note to say I’m going to be reducing the amount of time I spend on the internet, as I want to prioritise other areas of my life.  I’m going to try and manage my internet time more effectively so hopefully you won’t see a big change in the number of blogs posts.

One thing I want to be doing more is hitting the town on a Saturday night, and this I’ve been arranging nights out with my old mates. They are particularly hard bunch to pin down, but we enjoyed a great night out together and the end on last month. I’d forgotten my camera, so sadly I’ve got no pictures, but it was a really great night. We’ve got another night out planned for the end of this month.

I’ve recently knocked out some new ObscureInternet Posts, including a new three part scam baiter. Part one is available now and the next couple of parts will be up in the next two weeks.

Gaming wise, after playing Saints Row 2 almost to death (I’m about 82% complete, but all the stuff that’s left isn’t as fun as the rest so I’ll leave it for now) I’ve picked up a couple of new (and more importantly cheap) PS3 games, they are GTA IV and Metal Gear Solid 4: Cut scenes of the Patriots. Conor bought himself Lego Indiana Jones 2 for the PS3 and we also got Let’s Dance but I haven’t had a proper go of it yet.

The Animex International Festival of Animation and Computer Games is again taking place at Teesside University, and as part of this Conor got two tickets to see UP and the Cineworld in the town.

While we were at Cineworld we bumped into Darth Vader and  a few other Star Wars characters and I even managed to say the ‘Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?’ line and it was in context as he was about the same height as me.

The film itself was brilliant and despite seeing it in 2010 it is definitely my movie of 2009 (beating even District 9) and my been getting old and sentimental but those scenes at the beginning of the movie really got to me, also Russell is awesome.

Transformers 2 opens tomorrow, but balls to paying to see that rubbish just so I can review it for you.

Here’s my review of Micheal Bay’s first Transformers movie. I can’t imagine this film is going to be any different, since it’s still got the same idiot writers and the same terrible director. So if you enjoy terrible dialogue, poorly shot actions sequences, lots of uninteresting throwaway human characters, racism, over the top American Jingoism, no character development, blatant product placement, terrible Transformer designs, and have an unhealthy obsessions with Megan Fox, then you should go and see it.

Saw Star Trek last night, as I mentioned in previous posts I did have a lot of mixed feelings about the film especially as it involves rewriting Star Trek History and especially that the people responsible for this re-write are the people who wrote the appalling Transformers.

Star Trek fortunately is a much better film than Transformers and is a good summer blockbuster, but still suffers from the a lot of the same faults as transformers, and ultimately left me feeling underwhelmed.This blockbuster Star Trek has lost it’s soul, but everything is so shot so close up in super-tight, million-edits a second fashion, every goes so quickly, you’ll barely notice. So I’ve summarised them below for you;

NERD RAGE (and major spoilers) AHEAD!

First of all the Title of this movie is Star Trek, no subtitle, just Star Trek. I mean how cheeky is that?

It suffers from ‘Shaky Camera Action’ which seems to be a rather annoying habit of recent action movies. Most of the action works well despite the shaky camera, however some of action is rather silly and over the top, why is Sulu doing spinning jumps while he is, rather strangely in itself, fencing with a Romulan? Also why did the brief fight between Kirk and Spock look like it had been lifted from a Jason Bourne film .

The Acting is generally good, where the script allows it to be. Various lines of dialogue, are crudely inserted from previous films and television episodes, therefore the actors have to suffer through shoehorned Star Trek lines such as  ‘Damnit Jim’, ‘I’m a doctor, not a [insert profession here], and the most offensive ‘She kannie take anymore’ which ruined a tense scene. Despite having the majority of these sorts of lines Karl Urban shines in his roles as Bones. Poor Eric Bana has nothing really to do, as is just a generic villain (plot question: What did Nero and his crew do while he was waiting those 25 years).

The script is the films biggest weakness. As you probably know the plot be now involves time travel to giving the (lazy) writes scope to change a few things. These changes do start of as minor, simply giving us Chris Pine’s sub-James Dean frat-boy rebel Kirk, and a Spook and Uhura relationship (that seems to be added to the plot just to shock the fans) but it soon escalates into destroying the planet Vulcan. Complete screwing up the rest of Trek history/future. This isn’t a minor tweak to the Star Trek universe as we’ve been told. It’s a massive change, and I feel a kind of slap in the face to original Trek and it’s follow ons.

There are also two rather lame and obvious plot exposition scenes, The Mind-Meld scene (with a rather annoying echo) and the ‘Alternative Universe’ scene on the bridge which seems to be aimed straight at the audience. Also Spock appearance in the film seems to be just to offers helpful plot exposition, telling the characters exactly what they need to do in order to progress, and then what do once the film is complete.

The insertion of the fabled ‘Kobayashi Maru’ test completely misses the point of the original story (given in Wraith of Khan). Kirk is a now cocky punk who cheats out of entitlement, rather than someone who stubborn refuses to believe in the no win situation.

There are also a couple of forced comedy moments, Kirk ‘hilarious’ medical condition and Mr Scott appearance onto the ship, which again just feel shoe horned in between other scenes to lighten the mood.

Another massive problem with the plot is how convenient everything falls into place. Young Spock uncharacteristically, in a fit of anger, dumps Kirk on a planet which just happens to house both Future Spock and Mr Scott. Mr Scott is then able to become the USS Enterprise’s new chief engineer as the old chief engineer (Greg Ellis from Command & Conquer Red Alert 3) killed himself in a extremely stupid manor earlier in the move. Uhura, Kirk are all promoted in similar and equally unconvincing matter.

Thus at the end of movie everyone is placed in their rightful place, meaning Kirk is Captain of the Star Fleet flagship before even officially leaving the academy,

This film is Star Trek for people who have never seen it before, and who Hollywood believe need simple characters and the story explicitly explained in monologue, it’s also completely missing Star Trek moral centre, replaced with a post 9/11 let’s kill the space terrorists.

I’m in no rush to see a sequel.

Me and Chovi caught Cloverfield on Friday and I thought I would share some thoughts on it (mild spoilers ahead), I’d been looking forward to seeing the trailer last July. In fact you can track my interest from the thread in the forum.

First note is if you don’t shaky cam TV or films (e.g. Battlestar Galatica, Bourne Supermacy, etc), then is is not the film for you epically if the person you are seeing it with has poor vision and insists on sitting near the front.

I really enjoyed the film, as it is a such a great concept a Monster movie without the cliches, presidents, scientists or cute children. It’s a Godzilla movie from the perspective of the people in street who are running away screaming before the plastic tanks turn up. Please note I love Japanese Godzilla movies, ‘Destroy all monsters’ is a particular favourite.

Anyway as I stated the it’s the little people who are the focus of this movie, and what great about them is that they are well developed and behave in a realistic manor. I hate how in a lot of movies, people barely escape death or see a horrendous site just movie on the next scene with no real signs ofpsychological reaction to these events. In Cloverfield it’s not like that for example, after seeing the monster a rather shell shocked Marlena whispers an unbelieving ‘It’s eating people’ and stays in her shell for most of the film until coaxed out of it be the hapless Hud, who in my humble opinion is the star of this film, despite being behind the camera for most of it.

I even liked the romance between the pretty boy and pretty girl films leads as it was mostly done via a back story which is wonderfully shown as flash backs in the most ingenuous way.

Of course the film wasn’t perfect, after several months of speculation the monster it self was rather disappointingly non iconic, so much so I wonder if it could have done with a little less screen time. Also speaking of the monster, do you think it shared the same route map as the protagonists? They seem to bump into each other a lot, unless Manhattan is a lot smaller than I originally thought. Other gripes include the deaths of Marlena (she just explodes?) and Hud (who is not eaten?) and finally the short running time it’s 85 minutes long and twenty of those minutes seem to be the end credits.

However all in all I thought the film was excellent, it left me wanting more and now, of course their is now talk of a sequel.

I'm sitting in a sunny Lytham St Annes (it is really sunny for a change) so I though it must be time to do a blog, I would be in the now gym but I've forgotten my gym clothes. I am current sitting in my room's little garden wearing tracksuit bottoms and the pink shirt I wore to work. It takes a real man to carry off pink.

Alright, I've been up to a fair bit since we spoke (at length) last but as usual I've forgotten the good, interesting and important stuff so here is the rest;

A quick reformat of the PC has found me looking at all the digital photographs I have taken over the years. I have found two things. 1) There is a lot of them 2) They mostly involve drunken nights out. This got me thinking I've not update the gallery on this fine website for quite a while, which is a really sad state of affairs. So look forward to some new drunken images coming to gallery soon.

I’ve been struggling with completing the c64glen show episode 5, don’t hold your breath for that one. However speaking of videos, I've recently been watch the latest instalment of Anna Black's 8-Bit Sid-Chip Sandwich Show   which is excellent, . I suggest you do the same, and then leave some comments about it in the forum

Another thing I’ve seen is the Untitled J.J. Abrams Teaser which has appeared recently on the internet. I think this is excellent, it’s seems to have caught a lot of people imagination judging by the hype it is causing on the internet. The weirdest thing about it is that it is similar to a lot of the dreams I have (the ones I can remember). They usually go something like this; a normal time is being have by all and then something world changing happens in the distance and everyone is scared senseless. The last one I remember having has be getting off the bus (in Berwick Hills) and then seeing a number of planes dropping a large number of bombs to the north, however that probably wasn't a bad thing. Anyway, you can leave your thoughts about the trailer in the forum .

I've recent got a new mouse as the old one was behaving very strangely, (i.e. clicking on the window behind the one that was open). It is a nice gamer mouse, which means it is very sensitive (as in 1600dpi, not as in it cries a lot) and has six buttons. I’ve been using to play it on Counter-Strike Source with some of the other forum members, I’m really enjoying playing it as It’s a great game that you can pick up at anytime and I’ve actually been getting better at it. I’m not saying I’m great, just less worse than I was. If you want a game, just sign up here.

Finally that’s all I can remember for now so I will finish on two random questions Bill has asked me today;
Where did you get married (Church or Registry office) ?
Have you every visited a prostitute?

Can you guess the correct answers?

I had a great day with Conor in Albert Park a few Saturdays back, it was Pirate Day, we saw (and participated in) a magic show, did a treasure hunt (won a Frisbee), saw some hawks and owls, bumped into Deborah and Spencer and got a little sun burnt but I think the highlight of the day is when I was put in the stocks and Conor threw wet sponges at me, I got soaked. Me and the family also popped into town the next day to see Middlesbrough music live.

I still haven't been able to get to the gym regular because of my job, but I did get in once last week, and I hope to go tomorrow as well. I'm also going to cut down on the drinking as it is making me very fat, unfortunately when I'm working away I’ve got the choice of going out for a meal and a drink or staying in and watching six year old episodes of Judge Judy.

The comments system has been updated and to answer Scrib's question about it, it does some simple validation on what you enter (email address and main text), but it does not ban any words such as spunk (I'm not that much of hypocrite) but it will not allow comments with any words assoicated with spam (e.g. Vigara).

I'm working on an ObscureInternet news feature which will be a news system for all the ObscureInternet sites and will be customizable to work on each site and as an RSS feed, it should be good if I ever finish it. I'm also working on IRC chat feature for the main page, and a Rich Text editor for the backend updating.

I'm Going to Amsterdam with some of the work lot, should be fun! Speaking of the work lot since we last met I Nice meal on Sunday in Sunderland with work and the wife. It was a Lovely Italian meal with good company!

I also need to state Final Fantasy VII Advent Children is the most awesome of films, I insist you go and see it somehow.

I missed most the Gym last week, as I didn't feel to good. I've been Back at the Gym this week gained weight, but I seemed to have gained weight, I'm over 11 stone again!

Computer has been out of action because we have been putting down new flooring in the living room (where the computer lives) but we ran out, and there was no more stock.

On the website front, I've been working on a new site for a friend, this is the first 'shop front' website I will have done. I'll post I link when it is finished. Jamie's website Mercury Vapour has been redesigned, and I don't like it looks to much like every other blog.

My Dream Team has not been doing to well since the last update, especially now Stupid Heinze is crocked.

Trust me, this will be THE breakthrough ANIME movie.

Link: Steamboy

Click the link

Link: Godzilla News

I was going to keep it simple and say it’s not the worst film in the world but I would not pay money to see it, then I read an Interview with Paul W.S. Anderson at Dark Horizons.

So I’m not so sure now, but don’t get even me started about the ending

Link: Dark Horizons