I love it when people who can do something really well start to fool around. Here is a good example, a discovery of the week, so to speak – comedy gymnastics by Paul Hunt.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu-YAMiS5wA]
There is more on YouTube if you search for Paul Hunt. Here is another example.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO_BnsrWMnI]
I watched “Eagle Eye” recently. I haven’t seen the trailer and the rough plot descriptions that I have seen around were way too vague, so I didn’t really know what to expect of it. Once I saw it, I realized that the plot is indeed difficult to describe without spoiling it for those who haven’t seen it. On the other hand, the covers are open pretty early in the film, so I wouldn’t felt robbed if someone told the truth.
If you don’t want to get any spoilers, stop reading here. Maybe fast-forward to the last paragraph or so. For the rest of you – the film is a bit too far fetched conspiracy of the computer going crazy. It has all the attributes of any other conspiracy film – innocent victims, dictator’s plot for the greater good, lots of secrecy, lots of car chases and shooting, and a few federal agents. The only difference here is that it’s not a human or an organization, but a supercomputer going nuts.
I think we’ve all seen films with computers going crazy. These films had their time and place, except maybe for last one, which can still make it through. I’m talking about the Terminator, of course. Everything else should die off as an IT legacy. Three year old kids these days know how to use a computer. You can find one in absolutely every non-government office which has electricity. Millions of people are connected to the Internet, have very sophisticated mobile phones, and have seen films about insane computers. It’s just not working any more.
And I think that’s about the only thing that was bad in this film – the story. Other than that, it was pretty good. There are quite a few well-known people. There are plenty of special effects. There is enough suspense and drama. And even something to listen to while everything moves, shoots, thinks, and explodes.
My overall rating is 4 stars.
Being a gamer myself and actually knowing something about the game world from the inside, I always found it funny when mass media talks about games from the evil point of view, especially when they throw the addiction bit in. My position on this is that games are not drugs, games are not alcohol, games are not some other sort of chemical substance, so it is impossible to have physical addiction to games. Yes, one can get used to games a lot psychologically, but the extent of this addiction is not even comparable to anything “real”, like smoking for example.
My opinion is based of course on my personal experiences and interactions with many other gamers. They all are different people with varying level of “addiction” to games, but they are all sane people.
However, today I was enlightened. And that reminded me of something else. I used to listen to BFBS radio (British Forces Broadcasting System) a lot. And I remember there was a period when they were discussing a problem they have in UK with pubs and early closing hours. A lot of semi-drunk people are kicked out to the streets all at once and they don’t have anywhere else to go, but home. I never thought of it as a big problem. After all, how many pubs in the area can you have and how many people that could be. I, of course, was thinking in terms of pubs we have in Cyprus, where the worst case scenario would be somewhere around 200 people. Until I’ve heard the radio mentioning some pubs which host as many as 4,000 people. Than I understood the problem properly. Indeed, if you have a couple of pubs like that in the area and you kick all those people out at midnight, you’ll have a problem on the street with noise, crowds, and probably a few broken properties and a few wet walls.
In the same way I was today enlightened about the “game addiction” problem within younger generations. How did that enlightenment come to me? By means of this video (via The Next Web blog):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc]
This opens a totally different perspective now, doesn’t it?
I got my hands on “Crank : High Voltage” last Saturday. I’ve heard a few good reviews of this movie, so I decided to watch it, even though I haven’t seen the first part “Crank”.
I wasn’t disappointed at all. The film is pure action from start to end, with somewhat bizarre story, which I didn’t mind at all. It contains lots of chasing, fighting, swearing, and even some sex. Excellent cast and directorship were spiced up with plenty of visual effects and good soundtrack.
This is not a serious movie by any measure, but a very enjoyable one if you are into fast cuts, action, and crime on the big screen. My rating: 5 stars.
As I mentioned earlier, Masters of Dirt – world-wide known group of free-style motocross riders – were coming to Cyprus for a few shows. I went to see their show in Limassol yesterday.
In brief, I had an excellent time. There were a few people who were trying to spoil the fun (DJ Mousaka) or were not quite up to the par with the show (The Fuel Girls), but that was easily compensated by the Masters of Dirt.
Taking the unimportant out of the picture, imagine this: loud hard rock music (Rammstein, Marilyn Manson, AC/DC, and such), fireworks, and motocross bikes jumping off the rump one after another, doing all sorts of crazy stuff in the air! Pure awesomeness!
The show started with some warm-up tricks, which looked like anybody can do them, slowly progressing to more difficult ones and to group jumps in pairs and “trains” of four. After a little break they went totally insane. It was non-stop action from four riders, who were later joined by a quadro-cycle rider.
My favourite bit was when they did the back-flip progressions. I am not very familiar with the free-style motocross sport, so I learned a lot. They were calling for the name of the trick (“tsunami”, “cancan”, etc) and had two riders – one was doing the original trick, and the second one was doing the back-flip variation of it. That is the same jump and move while the motorbike was doing a back-flip in the air. Some of the original tricks looked very difficult. However their back-flip variations were in the “impossible” range.
If you haven’t seen their show yet, here’s your chance. They will have another show in Limassol tomorrow, Sunday, June 28th. I suggest you catch it. And if you have any kids – make sure they see it as well. Tickets are 30 EUR for adults, 25 EUR for minors, and entrance for kids under 6 years of age is free. I had Maxim (4.5 years old) and he enjoyed the show quite bit too.
Highly recommended.