Christmas Time...

Hi everyone,

*I'll try posting a fitting photo or picture later - please bear with me, it worked the last time...*

it is almost Christmas again and since I think that I will probably continue to be busy the next days, I just wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays or a Merry Christmas and of course a Happy New Year. I recommend watching the American Dad Christmas Episodes to get into the perfect mood for relaxed days, or for the girls or softer souls out there (those who may get offended easily) I'd rather recommend movies like Love Actually or (though it is not about Christmas) Music and Lyrics.


I'll try to blog a little more again, but I realize I already said that a few times before, so do not expect too much. I am finishing my doctoral thesis and that is taking a lot of time.

News:
I now have a Nintendo Wii and am a newly not yet celebrated Mii designer. I forsee good chances for my current Luigi implementation in the current pre-christmas Mii-challenge however. The Wii has proven a fun and pretty cool console, though other may of course note the lack of high-res graphics and the shifted focus on younger or older audiences that is also reflected in the games available. However I do really believe there are gems for everyone and almost any taste available, so long as you can just live with the Nintendo trademarks of Mario and Co. The Wii-Mote does however also have interesting side uses: See here

I am thinking about opening an account at Flickr. Lots of friends and colleagues already have one, but I never saw much need for myself to do so. I am starting to see certain benefits when taking a look at their libraries, which I will detail in a seperate post, if I decide to join 'that' community too.

Another thing I did, was open a StudiVZ account after my brother invited me. Again: I do not see much of the point for me, since I am no student anymore, but it is always interesting to find other people you know online. I haven't really put any effort into that so far however, but at least I gathered some knowledge about that phenomenon on my own.

Yesterday we went to the Christmas Market in Paderborn with a few friends and afterwards watched The golden Compass based on the first book in the Trilogy His dark materials by Philip Pullmann. I read the first book when it came out in 1995, though even then I thought some things were oversimplified, while other concepts like that of "Dust" as "Conscious Dark Matter" proved interesting points of reflection, as I had contemplated similar concepts when I was eleven or twelve. The movie's direction sometimes really suffered in my opinion. There were some really misplaced cuts and strange insertions.


I did however really like the actors. Nicole Kidman, convincingly playing the beautiful but still somehow erie, dangerous and creepy mother of the protagonist Lyra, shines especially here, but a lot of the other actors were chosen quite well too. I don't know if I can recommend the movie, I think you should rather read the books, but the others who had not read even one of them, all liked the movie. So make up your own mind, however I still think that they totally messed up that trailer. It was probably done by the same person who made those horrible cuts and transitions in the movie.

Again: Happy Holidays to y'all!

FromThe one and only

Au Canada...

Hi everyone,

this is a report on the conferences I visited so far and first thoughts on the one I am currently at. The i-Know'07 in Graz was a very nice first conference. Lunch, coffee breaks (with a selection of nice cakes) and a nice gala diner with live music were included in the conference fee. There were about 500 attendents and I easily managed to get into contact with a set of nice people. My paper attracted quite a lot of people (the room was so full some people had to remain standing at the sides) and the questions were very focused. I received a lot of positive feedback from people who had seen the presentation, so overall I am quite content. I collected business cards like a madmen and handed out my old one, which reminds me: I need a business card holder.

The City Hall of Graz housed the Triple-I Conference 2007

Graz was also nice as a city, though it was raining most of the time and though it was actually quite similar to most German citys, down to the same kinds of shops. Well I know Austria isn't that far away, but I had expected more diversity. What was funny however was that along the central townsquare there were at least 20 loungerie shops ;) They sure like their sexy underwear the Austrians.

The Bell Tower of Graz - The city's landmark

The Hotel Feichtinger where I stayed was very nice and comfortable and had a simple but nice breakfast included in the price, just as well as free wireless internet access. It was really hasslefree and good service and also located in walking distance from the city center, so if you're
staying in Graz I can only recommend you stay there.

The 'Graziens' sure like their pillars and statues

More proof of 'pillarism' - Sadly the weather was a letdown...

The next conference the GMW ("Gesellschaft für Medien in der Wissenschaft" = "Society for media in the sciences") was quite a different thing: It took place in Hamburg and our research group tried winning the so called 'Medidaprix' which can mean a funding of up to €100.000. Originally my prof wanted to do the presentation there, but when the jurors came over 10 minutes before his presentation, he asked me to do it. So in just ten minutes I went through my prof's presentation, built my own presentation sheets together in a consistent manner, added a few new ones and raced to the assigned room to present out paper. It was rushed and that is also how the presentation felt: Not well prepared at all. A video of that shameful event can be found online, if you can find it.

Food at the Triple-I in Graz was plentyful and of nice quality, not so at the GMW in Hamburg :(

Naturally PetPet and I had a huge piece of wonderful Sacher Cake in Graz! Strangly however I ate some at the GMW as well, since our booth neighbours from Austria distributed them quite liberally. That was the only real food we got at the conference (of course excluding the one nice evening gala).

Needless to say: We didn't win the price, we didn't have a nice hotel and we didn't get any food between sessions. Only the evening gala dinner in Hagenbeck's Tierpark (the oldest and most famous zoo in Hamburg) was quite good, though that might be related to the bottle of wine, each of us must have emptied ;)

The view from my hotel room in the Hilton Quebec. The view was nice the service not as much. No wireless internet and the standard DSL costs extra. Breakfast isn't included in the room proce either.
(Again: I can only recommend "Hotel Feichtinger" in Graz. They had a nice breakfast, very good location, free wireless internet, a very good overall service and everything at one very moderate room rate)

Now I am at the E-Learn 2007 in Quebec-City, Canada and am enjoying the nice weather. I will write a little more on the conference tomorrow or Thursday, but so far it has been a nice experience (although we are again not provided with any food *grin*). The presentation went quite well in my opinion and what makes me even more sure of it, is that a lot of people told me so. The speaker after me however was a little bit lost, which is a nice way of saying that his presentation sucked big time. He had won a best paper award, but aparently was only firm at writing english not speaking it and to make matters worse had apparently pasted his whole paper onto the power point slides with a general font size of 12-14, I guess you can imagine ;)

A very nice fountain, depicting ladies (and a few kids and a bearded guy) bathing, in front of the houses of parliament, her in the nightime overview...

...and for all of you who like more detail a daytime close-up shot.

Edit: Quebec was very nice, we enjoyed beautiful weather and I had the special pleasure of a nice French/Canadian Dinner for 100$. That was really a Lucullan pleasure and totally worth it. Let me note however, that a lot of that amount went into tips and wine (which cost almost as much as the menu at 50$ a bottle for a 2004 Côte Du Rhone). Most of my readers probably know that food is my special hobby and thus, I think one sometimes has to spend (a little) more money to get a special meal. I really hope other people think the same way :)

Btw.: The pictures in Quebec were taken with my brand-new Canon Powershot G9 camera. This thing really makes beautiful pictures, but I still have to learn using its features properly.

The third course of the five course French/Canadian Dinner: Tartar de Caribou (a sort of North-American Deer), with poached quail's egg.

Quebec's trademark - Château Frontenac, which was being restorated at the time of my stay in Canada. I tried to catch a perspective without the massive scaffolding and I think I succeeded. Also notice the blue sky: The weather was pretty nice with about 15°C.

Another trademark of the city, a mural depicting the same view you would get from turning around on the plaza.

Hope you like the update. I know it's been a long time, but I tend to keep my promises (*grin*). Next (recent) post will be up, in a minute too.

What did I like about the E3?

A lot! Even more! For one... I am going to buy a PS3! I love the games that are coming out for it and I do especially like the game you see below: Final Fantasy 13 however will not only come out as one game, it will come out as 3 games, giving you access to certain sides of the story. It will be much like the Final Fantasy 7 Compilation. So for me I guess the main FF13 will be the only real option.

The sad thing however is that I haven't even played Final Fantasy 12 yet, since the expected release date over here in Europe (just like in America) is around September to October 2006. With the newly anounced worldwide release date for the PS3 on the 17th of November that doesn't really leave much time to play through 12 on the PS2 before embarking on journeys on the new console...


I did however observe that Gears of War on the XBOX 360 looks intriguingly well, even better than the similar PS3 title Killzone, which is in my opinion however not due to hardware limitations but due to the developers' abilities. Look at the FF13 trailer and you will see that the ingame scenes look just like the cutscenes. There is next to no noticable difference. THAT is how it's done!!!


Congratulations Square-Enix, despite your utter lack of well behaviour towards us European pigs at least you show us that you deserve to look down on us - wait wasn't there this German developer Crytek showing their new game Crysis?


Oh hell yes there was... Guess even the guys at Square could learn something from these guys - now who's the winner bros? The realism guys from Germany or the artsy cultists from Square? Well both are in my opinion however standing next to Japanese guys quite often lately, my pal Steve said: "As a 6 foot European, you look down on them just naturally..." What does that tell us? I don't know, I just need a coffee. See you next time (month?!?) - Staroc

Long time, no Narnia!!!

Hi again! I know I didn't post for a long time now and the promised Harry Potter review never saw the light of day, but the reason behind all this is: I was ill and basically haven't even completely recovered now. Well 'insane' as always, I now feel well enough to marter you with my newest review of the Chronicles of Diharroea - er - Narnia:

Just like with my Sin City review you can guess that I just tend to write reviews if I hated the movie and you're right: So well why was Narnia as shitty as Sin City?

First of all it was tedious, very tedious and boring. The story that carries the kids to the actually interesting point of the battle (i.e. climax) is about as boring as you can possibly imagine a fantasy story to be. I mean just look at LotR and how they did it - there was real threat and danger due to the ring wraiths everywhere around. Here we get nothing for the first hour or so until then finally the white bitch ...er... make that witch sends out her dogs (I mean wolves) after having captured one of the kids, the cleverst of them all - and by that I mean the most stupid of the lot.

Don't get me wrong they are all about as dumb as a doorknob with their brains at a below zero degree working temperature! They are what most Europeans would think how American kids must be like. Yes they are THAT stupid. Coming to the countryside, fleeing from German bombings in World War II, they are cought up to there necks in questions of authority and kids games. None of them, even the oldest two (a bossy, motherly type and a loser with a low leadership value [god I have invested too much time in Warhammer lately]) seem to have a clue about what's going on.

Well let's begin with Lucy or however that little brat was called. So the kids were just killing time by playing hide and seek and Lucy stumbles over an old wardrope in which she hides, noticing that it leads into a snowy forrest. Well she assumes that it must be a rather BIG wardrope she is in... ahem ... yeah sure kid, there's a whole fucking WORLD in your bloody wardrope... ok... enters a Faun or however these beasts are called. He is half man half goat (yup actuall goat legs and all - though due to Disney, while being pantless, no sexual organs actually show). That in itself is a statement that should give you an idea of the weirdness of the situation. However Lucy just goes on as mothers warn their children they shouldn't when encountering strangers:

After talking to him and helping him pick up some of his stuff, JUDGING how nice a person Mr.Tumnus really is, she then (stupidly as always) follows him to his place to have some nice tea and toast with anchovy. Er...yeah...that is what I would do......sure........Discover a freaking gate into another world (not worrying a bit if you can get back) following a complete stranger with goat legs (and no visible sexual-organs!!!) to have fucking tea with him at his place?!? My god what did that kid's mother teach her?!? Nothing? Bullshit? Both!!! Well turns out that the 'nice' Mr. Tumnus actually wanted to kidnap Lucy and keep her prisoner to deliver her to the evil white bitch, witch whatever. Only now he that he's done it, he's too chicken (despite being half a goat...) to actually do it. Well that is SOME luck little Lucy, because in 99% of the cases you would now have been raped and possibly killed, or at least been handed over for a lot of money to the white queen who then would have raped and or killed you.

[Photo]

Well just as luckily she discovers (suddenly remembering that she has been away from home for a while) that she can go back through the wardrope to her own time/world/dimension and that no time has passed there at all, though she has stayed at least a day in Narnia. Ok the clever audience notices, almost no time passes here, when they are in Narnia, so logically if she would enter the wardrope a second later, years would have passed there... Well only problem is the gate to Narnia has closed, so no one believes Lucy and she cries around (her big brother and sister are helpless as always).

At night Lucy gets back to Narnia (gate is open again) and her second brother follows her (he's the family's rebellious character). Well interestingly just a little time has actually passed in Narnia despite our expectations...so yes it is an illogical world-gate-structure portrayed here. Ed, Lucy's brother, manages to stumble upon the white bitch and her chariot driver (a mad dwarf - well that is actually a rather well-done portrayal of dwarves) who first almost runs him over, then almost kills him until the queen orders him to stop and asks Ed if he wants to enter the sleigh........ok what did your mother say? Never enter a stranger's car, especially if they offer you sweets...... the queen offers him whatever he wants to eat and drink (turkish delights and hot chocolate) and OF COURSE he enters the chariout and believes EVERYTHING the bitch says and then agrees to bring around his sibblings (which she needs to kill to negate an age old prohecy about her death).

Again - yeah sure that is how I would act! I would never have ANY suspicions about people giving me stuff for free and then keep asking me to do stuff for them just because they are SO nice...

Well I'll skip a bit now since I think you got the impression of tediousness and overall stupor already and the film goes on in the same anti-pace and with the same amount of boring events and mindboggling absence of sanity (or well behaviour due to a good upbringing).

All the kids come to Narnia and meet some (well animated) beavers after discovering that Mr. Tumnus has been arrested for NOT giving Lucy in (her brother told the witch about all this - man is that boy smart). The beavers can talk and tell the kids about the prophecy, that anounces the end of the white witch, the coming of Azlan (a lion king - saviour [or a Kebab-takeaway (and delivery) around where I live]) and the big battle leading to these events fought by the 2 sons of Adam and 2 daughters of Eve (I wouldn't have wondered if one of the kids had said: 'but Dad is called Burt and Mom's name is Monica'...well but they got it right this time, only that they understandably don't want to fight at all having just fled from war). They can only agree on having to free Mr.Tumnus (yup the guy that almost raped their youngest sister...) and then their borther Ed aswell, who ran away to his new flame the white bitch.

Since he cannot pay her fees (that would be his sibblings) there is no sex for him (he wouldn't have survived THAT anyways - think Basic Instinct) and he is thrown into prison with the almost-rapist Mr. Tumnus, who is killed or rather frozen (since the queen is not really killing anyone, just turning them into black ice or stone - yup smells disneyish to me aswell) shortly after this, having learned that Ed is the 'traitor' who gave away the info that Tumnus didn't turn in Lucy. Queeny sends out her wolves to catch the kids but they are unable to, since the kids are lucky again (they are running to Azlan's pad [maybe they are hungry, they DO have cheap, yummy Kebabs there - now pay me for this statement!!!]). Then all of a sudden they meet Santa Claus (ho, ho, ho - what a great, fucking insane idea!!!) who gives them weapons as chrismas presents. Little armsdealer Santa...who would have thought it, but now we know how Sadam got these weapons of mass destruction that (later) no one could find hmmmmm?

Well they do arrive at Azlans camp and learn that they must fight, so that the eternal winter put over the land by the evil bitch (Lucy learned from Goatie WHY she is THAT evil and must thus be killed: She made it always winter but NEVER christmas - GOD THAT IS PURE EVIL, NOT EVEN DARTH VADER MANAGED TO DO THAT!!! - hey but isn't Santa back now, huh?...nah still need to juice..er..kill her!). The queen's wolves attack the kids again and the oldest brother doesn't want to fight, then in defense holds up his sword into which the big bad (talking) wolf then readily jumps. Yeah really, he totally jumps into the blade, the boy doesn't even move it. Maybe it's just me but I deem the wolf's move was tactically speaking 'unwise' or even 'unfavourable'...(so we see the creatures are just as stupid as the kids...)

Then the queen exchanges Ed's life for that of Azlan - the Lion Saviour, who in the night is killed by her on a huge stone altar. The killing itself is portrayed rather emotionless and boring [a bit more excitement would maybe have put too much bloodlust into a Disney-Movie, but who cares anymore by now], we do however find the two girls watching the whole thing happen. Then while they mourn at the lions side, the big battle begins, led by the oldest brother, who shortly before still hadn't figured out on which end his sword should be held. Imagine a battle that could have been as intense as the last battle in Lord of the rings. Now take away dark, really ugly creatures and replace them with furry animals and a few angry looking dwarves. Now take away all the blood and darkness. Take away the music and the choreography. Now you can almost picture the epic 'vastness' (should be wasteness) of this battle being fought on green hills in the sunshine.

Need I say it? It is boring as hell to watch, despite being the fucking climax. Then the lion returns from the dead (that is what people mean when they talk about all the Christian references in the books) and manages too kill the bitch just in time, before she can kill the oldest brother - now the hero who can suddenly kill Minotaurs and the likes. The lion bites her head off, but since no blood is on his mane or snout, maybe she was actually really made out of ice (icequeen) and he didn't bite her head of, but licked it off or something... since licking (a girl) in any form would be sex-related the whole scene isn't shown.

In the end the kids get to sit on the thrones, worshipped as kings and queens with new fancy-pansy titles. The whole world has summer again, Azlan leaves to where ever fighting lion saviours go and after living for 10 years or more in Narnia, the kids stumble upon the wardrope-portal again and are thrown back to their own world, being turned back into the spoiled, dumb brats they used to be. Serves them right in my opinion.

Nothing works in this movie, except for the glorious animation of the computer-generated animals which hasn't been paralleled before. The characters have no real developments, or if they do have it, it is all of a sudden (like the oldest brother knowing how to fight after the wolf jumped into his blade), there are no strong motivations really (why for example does the white queen want to rule Narnia, what are the benefits?) and there is no pace or interesting action in there at all.

I would have walked out of there had I not waited to see if at least the end is somewhat interesting, but yeah I should have left earlier. Really if this had been a horror-flick the stupid kids wouldn't have survived more than 10 minutes.

Thank you for your attention, if you haven't fallen asleep over this review or beat yourself to death with a spoon due to the detailed report of stupidity in this movie>;o)

Chinese Geisha...

Well I don't know if you have seen the new Harry Potter ('Goblin on fire'...meaning Dobby or sth. similar) yet, but you will find my review of the movie here somewhen next week.

Besides the trailers for Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong there was this one trailer for 'Memoirs of a Geisha' which at the time (1997ish) was a must-read novel. Well I didn't read it but the trailer itself looks promising. The only little problem that I had with it was that 3 of the main characters (Geishas respectively) aren't played by Japanese Actresses but by Chinese ones! Now don't get me wrong, I love good-looking Chinese actresses [god my own girlfriend is sorta Chinese] but the American directors are inviting trouble:

I don't know if you have followed the recent conflicts of these two Asian countries, mostly centered on a Japanese history book that plays down their cruel military acts commited during the second world war on chinese civilians. Now there was quite some more screaming when the Chinese public learned that Zhang Ziyi would play a 'japanese whore'. Contained within this statement are several misconceptions:

[Photo]

First of all it is suggested that the otherwise gorgeous Zhang Ziyi could 'play' this role. Obviously she can't, her acting isn't well enough to play such a role!!! Ha ha - gotcha! Nahhh of course I meant that she can't play this role in a metaphorical sense, since she is that good that she actually becomes the character she plays as long as she's acting (portrayal of the blind dancer in House of the flying Daggers was that great). Since she is gorgeous and strong and well-of she could never become a whore, so the statement is void already.

Second 'geishas' aren't prostitutes in the traditional (yep long tradition!!!) meaning of the word. 'Gei' means art and as such they are women of art. The art of entertainment (that may include sexual entertainment, yes, but is never obligatory and happens out of the geisha's free will or desire - much like at prom night), music, dancing, conversation or the well-known tea-ceremony. So that makes the statement wrong aswell.

Third, Zhang Ziyi's Geisha will have the special and remarkable feature of having blue eyes! I don't know about you, but I don't know any (pure-blood ~ Oh god a Harry Potter reference - shame on me) japanese girl with fucking blue eyes; as cool as this may prove to look in the end. So third point that's wrong in there.

In the end, I do think it might become a great movie to the likes of Last Samurai, especially due to having only Asian main characters. Zhang Ziyi will play the protagonist with the given name of 'Sayuri', the wonderful Michelle Yeoh will feature as her mentor and Li Gong will play a rival geisha by the name of Hatsumomo. Enjoy these chinese ladies, speaking English with their sweet accents, alongside Japanese actors like Ken Watanabe speaking with their Japanese accents. I look forward to finding out, IF the chinese actors got lessons to acquire a Japanese-English accent.

Let's close this treatise with a truly marvelous picture from last years oscars. Now ain't she beautiful?

[Photi]

Well she doesn't always look THAT good, especially without make-up, but then, who does (plus she's still cute) >;o)

Japanese Games are like Japanese TV...

Well howdy, my fellow Erthicans. My two week writing break has to be justified by the utter lack of exciting things happening over here in Germany or the Game-Scene in general. France has burning cars (not that I would think of that as good, but it's at least something to write about!) we have foggy, rainy and already bloody cold weather.

Gladly then I found something that is worth reporting. My ultimate target is though not publicly displayed on this site, but one of my common targets since my childhood days, the Japanese Game Industry and the dubious stuff they tend to call 'games'. One such Playstation Portable Games has recently come to my attention.

"Yawahada Eigo Juku" is its title. It is, following the description on the box, a program for learning conversational English, or 'EngRish' as the 'L' does not natively exist in the Japanese language. The game offers the TVs standard method of teaching english: Videos are played with sub-titles, first doing a conversation in Japanese, then reperforming the same conversation in English. Bad English AND subtitles in this case however as the following picture of the protagonists of this little piece of software will make clear:


Yup, you're seeing right my conversative American protestant, those are half-naked bikini girls (thank you Japan!!!). Nice japanese chicks with big boobs (as rare as that might be, they found three role models for this disc)! Their ability to actually speak English while dancing on the screen, finding silly reasons to start hopeless 'conversations', is to say the least utterly horrible. Another site referenced this bit of 'EngRish' girl-talk: "KUDO YUU TERU MII HAU TSU GETTO TSU ZA GUDDO RESUTORAN NIA HIA?!" (meaning "Could you tell me how to get to a good restaurant around here?").

My good religious parents, some of you must have thought it: "Will they strip and shake those jumbos around and then have a shower and touch each other?" just like you used to love in those porn-flicks, when you were around the same age your kids are now? (I know while back than that was cool, you now have to protect your poor kids, even from erect nipples under a shirt, while you cannot stop staring yourselves... go and pray in church on Sunday!). The answer however is "NO"! No they will always keep their nice bikinis on, but they sure as hell love to dance around the screen, giving you as much chances to see the rest of their perfekt skin, listen to their little Japanese manga-voices raping the English language and being perfectly cute while doing so.

Use this UMD as a chance to show your kids that Asian girls are indeed hotter than the fast-food fed barn-queens they may jump onto on prom-night (or more likely not...). If you may spot some small criticism between the lines, then yes, my dear reader, I don't think the Japanese company selling this is doing anything wrong (except they should hire gorgeous Japanese Girls who speak English properly, though that might be rare and thus expensive), not even buyers are doing anthing wrong (except if they actually want to learn English with this trash, which would be a waste of money really).

No the only ones who are wrong are those who think the idea behind this Software is dirty, since even her in reality-land, looking out of my window onto the parking-lot, I see all the parked tanks (refer to Shiratami's blog for the Japanese view of what the typical German is like) and the hot bikini-girls scrubbing all the dirt off them and in the process drenching themselves in soapy water. Believe me it's better than HDTV - I can see ALL THE DETAILS! While my mouth now fills with the same kind of substance, hoping not to be beat up by an enraged girlfriend, I send you these words:

"Are we lost (have you seen her die in the series last week? now Ana-Lucia may be hated even more, if it really was her...) Daddy?" the boy asked, "SHUT UP!" his father explained!

Think about it and see the truth! Oh and Steve get me a copy of this as long as you're still in Japan >;o)

Nintendogs goes Everquest...

Have you heard the news? Digital Pets sell well... Not really news in my opinion, since this is something I knew since that Tamagotchi wave during my childhood swamped over the world. Well however if you remember Sarge Starlight from my BF2 Squad that you have already seen in some of my short comics on this blog is also (strangely?!?) an Everquest 2 fan.

Well Crawler and I had this conversation about giving Starlight something nice for birthday, like a dog. We were laughing a lot about that, since Starlight will be turning 29 (almost 30) without a girl at his side and showing the first signs of age... (Like part of his digestive tract, deciding to leak explosively... yeah you get the picture). So we thought about getting him a hat, a stick and a dog, a dachshund. I suggested naming it 'Purzel' since that was what my grandfather (god bless his soul) called his dachshund.

We started laughing even harder when we thought that there should be a plaque or digital code-card of some kind coming with the pet, allowing Starlight to take Purzel the dog with him into the game Everquest 2 he so loves to play. Now that is SOME strong marketing argument, don't you think? Your true companion for hunting in real and digital life! A man's second best friend. A reason to live. OK, I'll stop it alright! Here is however the graphical result of our conversation depicted in a scene that vividly haunted our minds. Please imagine Starlight speaking with a scottish or a strong german (Cologne-Area) accent:


Well Starlight, since I know you read this blog aswell...I'll be out of country for a while *grin* AND I hope this doesn't spoil your birthday surprise for next year... >;o) Staroc out!

Kung Fu Hustle...

Well well well... looks that there were no BIG news or a lot of fun stuff in the last few days going on, especially with out German elections and the 'interesting' results, but let's not bath in pessimism:

Have you seen the 2004 movie Kung-Fu Hustle? Great movie! Fun, fist-on and wacky where needed. I like that! No me as a gamer asks himself, how come there are no cool kung-fu games out there reflecting some of that Hong Kong fun-style? Why aren't there any proper Kung-Fu games... Well as a language analyst you might add that kung-fu only means 'always train' and that some freaking games require exactly that to become well enough to earn ranks (yeah I KNOW what I am speaking of, still being private and also being scheduled forBF2 parachute lessons by my own guild...). It's not the same however:

Since I am a modern man, I want to be a master of 'having always trained' without the effort of 'kung-fu' (or was it the otherway round..). Someone must have thought the same: BEHOLD mortals the great power of Ragdoll Kung-Fu!!!


It's a game alright, it's about wacky Kung-Fu movies and it let's you create whatever moves you like to apply and let you use every object around. Yeah I know it looks sorta dated and 2d-ish but that is not the point: I really don't expect this to be a major game, a seller, I just expect it to be fun as hell, as a distraction that only requires a little training for the desired effect. You basically use the mouse to drag the ragdolls' limbs around to create devastating manouvers...

The above picture really cannot convey any of the possible fun this little piece of entertainment may bring, so I strongly advise you watch the trailer (warning: slow download - you can also watch it here - oh watch the second official trailer, the first one is crappy: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/ragdollkungfu/) Have fun guys, I know I will... oh and by the way it will be available for download on the Valve steam servers (no matter how evil that may be...)

Disgustingly violent pets...

Well maybe there is still somebody in this world who doesn't know Happy Tree friends yet. If you haven't get to know these little urchins of gut filled blood spraying lovable pets. They are the most adorable cuddly pets imaginable, yet engage in actions so utterly horrible you just got to laugh...

Let's review this last statement: In a mental home this might sound quite normal, but in real life (such as the Internet *wink*) it sounds sorta off. Well maybe it does only to me, since in a world where for most americans sex is considered to be much more dangerous to young children than blood-drenching violence, these cuddly cartoons (aliteration anybody *grin*) may just be the right thing for our children on afternoon TV.

Since I saw how fascinated some kids around 8-14 got by the GTA games (I know they should not have been playing it, but they were not my kids, okay...) saying things like: "Oh no you need to kill more hookers, they have all the money (at least capitalism still works). Oh! You just missed another, just shoot her in the head than stomp on her corpse..." I figure that we need a new campaign for more disgusting pets that take themselves apart. THANK YOU.

For all of you adults that want to take a look at what modern kids would go crazy about, look at their website or compare these two screens:

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Sweet dreams to all of you... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

SHIT CITY - You know the one with SINS

We have all played Sim City I guess... You never saw the Sims themselves (beside their 2 extra installments that in my opinion are SHIT too), only the houses, cars and sometimes news reports on high violence and stuff.

Well there's STINK CITY now, a horribly artsy pansy movie-comic adaption in the tradition of recent 'highlights' like Elektra (which of course was bullshit as well).

Sin City (see I could already bring myself to mention its real name in the third paragraph) is the CRAP I have seen a day ago. Oh my god is it bad. Yeah there's violence, a good deal of hinted and real nuditity, however it's still lame.

First its in black and white (artsy), plus the 'story' sucks: There's the unbribable cop (Bruce-boy) who hunts down the DON's son who rapes little girls and kills them (and gets away with it 'cause of his mighty dad, who bought the whole fucking town [not a wise investment if you ask me...]). However he (the 'perv' not the cop) is a little impotent and 'can only get it up, when they (the little girls) scream'. Great idea for a story... Well the cop is almost killed first by his heart dissorder then by bullets from some bribed cop, after first shooting the pervert.

Then there's the Barbarian (A bit like Crawler actually) who has sex with a whore who is dead next morning. Instead of looking if he crushed her accidently, he immediatly 'knows' she has been murdered by a hobbit (Yeah Frodo's a manical girl killer [yup there's 2 in the movie] and EATER in this one). So Mr.Conan declares war on the city, kills everyone who doesn't answer his questions plus those that do, finally finds the killer and his protector (a bishop). Then he shows the padre his favourite boy's head (again the hobbit) and kills him as well before being caught by the police and fried on one of these high-voltage chairs.

Next there's the Doc from 'Closer' who kills for money, yet loves a city amazon who he can't be together with (properly - fucking seems to work though). Well his new flame (not the amazon but some hairdresser...) is bullied by her old boyfriend, who later goes to the Amazon part of town (oh you know whores WITH GUNS) and is promptly killed. Well turns out he was a cop. Since there was a truce between amazons and the police this means war, if any info leaks. Well it leaks to be short and there's a lot of action to try and conceal it (mostly concerning an interesting trip with the talking corpse of the cop and the 'Closer'-Doc - did I mention the Katana Amazon [Kill Bill anyone?] had choped up the cops buddies so they would fit into the car's trunk?) with all cops that rushed to the scene being shot in the end.

Zoom back to Bruce-Boy still alive in hospital - who is now imprisoned by the Don-bribed police for eight years (well actually this is eight years ago from the barbarians and 'Closer'-doc story - he's arrested for girl raping...). The girl he saved writes him letters every week for eight years (So then, now is the same now as the Barbarian's 'now' - oh, because of the letters he sort of falls in love with the kid, though never seeing her again until the new 'now', which again is the barbarians now - figure it out >;o) ). When he gets out of prison she (the girl who's 19teen now - oh its Invisible Girl from Fanta 4 by the way), who's now a lap-dancer falls in love with him and he gives IT to her, then a creep shows up (not the hobbit but a yellow goblin (really depicted in yellow, since for even more artsy-ness, they put in colours on certain people...) who is the kid-fucker from the beginning after multiple operations trying to save his life since Brucy-Boy shot him 8 years previously - Well he kidnaps the girl,

Bruce (now in angry mode - facial expression stays the same due to 3-weather-Hairspray) finds them brings an end to creep, kisses girl goodbye and then brings an end to himself, though apparently his heart has stopped anyways. This luckily brings the fucking ton of shit people like to call movie (or comic adaption) to an END, before my heart actually stopped (was close though *evilgrin*)

GREAT MOVIE - NEVER GO AND WATCH IT IF YOU AREN'T AN 'ART-LOVING CULTURE CRAVING SADO-MASOCHIST PANSY COMIC BITCH WANKER

Thank you! I know, I watched it, but I didn't have my warning beforehand - YOU do >;o)