Lucky there's a Family Guy...........?

My daughter is a big fan of both The Simpsons and Family Guy and to be honest I'm pretty much over The Simpsons ( I'm looking forward to the return of Futurama though ) so we've been watching some of the early seasons of Family Guy.

I've never been a massive fan of Family Guy, sure it's had it's funny moments but I've never thought it lived up to the hype but I must say I think the earlier seasons are much better than the later stuff where the writers seem to think swearing is the same as good comedy writing, what a shame it is that while the quality of the show has been falling of late ( it does still have a few funny moments ) it's probably as popular as it's ever been, I'm not sure what that says about it's audience............

Signs

I finally got around to watch M. Night Shyamalan's movie Signs and I really liked it, I enjoyed both The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable ( although I think they are both a little over-rated ), didn't really care for The Village ( actually I thought it was rather predictable ) and I didn't like The Lady in the Water at all.

Signs however was a movie I really enjoyed, given it's story it could've been taken over by excessive amounts of special effects and turned into a Michael Bay style action film but instead Shyamalan delivers a solid story with great acting - it's be nice if we got more movies like that.
If you haven't seen it it's well worth checking out, Shyamalan's directing career has had both highs and lows up until now but if he can return to making movies like this it could only be seen as a good thing.

One of those days

We were involved in a car accident yesterday - no-one was hurt but just enough damage was done to be a pain in the ass.

It would've been nice if the the kid who hit us had been paying a bit more attention to what he was doing and travelling a bit slower as well, of course he had no insurance so he was very lucky no serious damage was done.

He actually seemed like a nice kid so I hope he's learned a valuable lesson, that whole situation could've been much worse than it was.

Roots of the Swamp Thing

A while back I picked up the Roots of the Swamp Thing hardcover at a local second hand bookshop, I've never been overly familiar with the character, I've seen the movies and some of the TV series and I'd also read a few of the comics but I'd never delved into the character in any big way.

For the price the guy at the bookstore was asking it was just too good of a deal to pass up so I grabbed it and eagerly took it home.

As it turns out it was a fantastic deal, I really enjoyed reading those stories and the book itself was really nice as well, it just has a nice chunky feel to it like a well made book does and the stories were printed on high quality non glossy paper that make them easy to read and in my humble opinion this paper really makes the artwork stand out.

I should probably point out that none of Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing is featured within, these are all early stories telling the characters origin as well as reprinting another story featuring the original Swamp Thing ( personally I had no idea there had been another version of the character ).

I thought this was a fantastic book and I wasn't a fan of the Swamp Thing character so I can't see how fans wouldn't love this high quality collection of reprints, it's well worth checking out if you get the chance.

They could be Heroes

I've just watched what is apparently the last episode of Heroes, I'm good with how it ended although I'm sure there are plenty of people who won't be.

I enjoyed the show over it's run, I didn't think the first season was as amazing as lot of people did and while I admit the following seasons of the show were weaker than the first I wasn't as disappointed by them as a lot of people seemed to be.

At some point I hope there is a complete series Blu-ray boxset as it's something I'd like to pick up and re-watch at some point.

Farewell Heroes, it was fun while it lasted.

Product Placement from Hell

I spent the afternoon watching some of the shows that have been gathering ( virtual ) dust on my DVR, included among those was an episode of Bones, now I like Bones it's not must see viewing but it's a fun little show.

What I'm not a fan of is product placement, I know why it happens and I can usually live with it but this episode served no purpose other than to advertise Avatar for the entire length of the episode and in the process the quality level of the storytelling fell way below the show's usual standard.

I was pretty disgusted by this episode, it's the sort of thing that turns me off a show so I hope this level of product placement never rears it's ugly head in Bones again ( or any other show for that matter ).

Stuff and Nonsense

Well the rebuilt computer seems to be running smoothly which is nice, been playing some video games ( Crysis on the PC and The Saboteur on X-Box 360 ), finished reading Roots of the Swamp Thing and made a start on the Dollhouse season 1 Blu-ray set.

You could argue that I should've cut the lawn, pruned a few branches of a tree in our front yard and cleaned out the fish pond not to mention the pool ( crap I just mentioned the pool ) but wheres the fun in that ?

Computers, great when they work !

Spent the better part of yesterday rebuilding my computer and reinstalling software, the whole process went much smoother than I expected and everything is now back to normal, no longer does it sound like someone is torturing the neighbors cat, in fact it's so quiet that it's hard to tell it's on unless you see the case lights ( or I've left the monitor on ).

Now it's business as usual, hopefully my computer will be trouble free for a while.

Supermarkets are bastards !

They are and I can prove it, there I was minding my own business just picking up some bread and milk ( Coke and dish washing detergent as well in case you were really interested ) and there on a rack was the first three volumes of the 90's Iron Man cartoon on DVD, I guess they must be a fairly new release since I had no idea they were on DVD.

So I grab those as well and go home, Fiona wasn't terribly impressed but I told her it wasn't my fault, if they didn't have them I wouldn't have bought them so therefore it wasn't my fault and they are a bunch of bastards for having something I actually want.

As excuses go that one wasn't particularly effective but next time she may decide to go and pick up a few things herself instead of asking me and in the meantime I'll be watching Iron Man.

Podcast on Fire

Over the last couple of years I've become interested in Asian cinema, these days it seems Hollywood is becoming more and more obsessed with pointless remakes and bland sequels so it's nice to see a movie industry that is doing something different.

For a while I used to listen to the sadly defunct Genrebusters podcast but that went the way of the dodo however about 2 months ago I discovered Podcast on Fire, a show that is dedicated to Asian cinema, it's a great show and there is a good chemistry between the shows hosts with their free flowing banter, the show however isn't work or kid safe.

If you are interested in Asian cinema at all you really owe it to yourself to check out Podcast on Fire.

Click here to check out Podcast on Fire

The Saboteur

About six months ago I was able to buy a bunch of fairly new X-Box 360 titles really cheaply but I just never got around to playing them, I'm quite a fan of the Grand Theft Auto style game and I knew The Saboteur was a game that took place in a massive world so I thought I'd give it a try.

To be truthful I haven't played many of the missions yet but I've spent a lot of time running around Paris and the French countryside ( a lot of countryside - this game is massive ) killing Nazis and blowing up German military assets but this game is a lot of fun, you play an Irishman in France during World War 2 fighting the Nazis but be warned this isn't a kid friendly game.

Based on what I've seen so far there is plenty to do and explore even if you aren't playing through the main story and the game sure is pretty, the AI for the Nazis isn't great but I'm not sure if that's a programming issue or if it's intended that the Nazis in the game are stupid.

I'm sure it's not to every one's taste but I'm really enjoying The Saboteur, it's just different enough from the Grand Theft Auto franchise to not feel like a rip-off but still have a lot of the game play elements that make that series fun.

The Good Night

I wanted to like The Good Night, I really did but I found the movie incredibly boring and gave up on it after about 40 minutes, I'd read some good reviews of the movie but I was left wondering what they saw in it - hugely dissapointing !

.....more hilarity ensued !

I watched At Last the 1948 Show, it was an amusing enough program for a sketch comedy and it is of some interest to fans of Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Goodies since John Cleese and Graham Chapman worked on this show prior Monty Python's Flying Circus ( with a couple of guest appearences by Eric Idle ) and Tim Brooke-Taylor was also a cast member ( and it had a couple of guest appearances from Bill Oddie ).

Like all sketch comedies it had it's good and bad points, I was slightly supprised to discover a couple of well known Monty Python sketches actually originated here although I guess they were probably written by Cleese and Chapman so that made it their material to use ( or re-use as they saw fit ).

Rounding out the cast was Marty Feldman and "The lovely Aimi Macdonald".

I rather enjoyed the At Last the 1948 Show and like Do Not Adjust Your Set it featured some of the early work of the Pythons before the arrival of the Monty Python juggernaut.

Whatever happened to Love Fist ?

I own both and overall I prefer the Playstation 3 over the X-Box 360 as a piece of gaming hardware but I must admit I really like the X-Box's backwards compatibility, until recently I couldn't have cared less but my daughter asked me if you could play original X-Box titles on the X-Box 360 and I said that you could.

This has led to her digging out Burnout 3, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, I've always been a big fan of the Grand Theft Auto series of games and I've found myself sucked right back into those games again, sure they may not be kid friendly and they are certainly not politically correct but they are a lot of fun.

It's just like living in the 80's all over again, I hope the next Grand Theft Auto takes olace in a reimagined Vice City, if they manage to keep the gamplay that made Vice City and Vice Cuty Stories so much fun and take advantage of the new consoles abilities it could be something special indeed.

There's a mouse in the house ?

I was sitting in my bedroom reading a book and minding my own business when I heard a blood chilling scream and the sound of Caitlin running up the hallway at mach 5, when I her asked what was going on ( what the hell was going on actually ) she said she thought she saw something and it might've been a mouse - like the dutiful parent I checked and found no evidence of a mouse anywhere but that wasn't good enough so it was off to the shop to buy poison and mouse traps.

Honestly the way she was carrying on you'd think Roman Polanski had turned up on our doorstep with a large bottle of Viagra but even that could've been worse, he could've bought his movies instead.

.....and hilarity ensued.

We Know Where You Live - Remix

I wanted to like this show, in fact I wanted to love it but the truth is We Know Where You Live - Remix just wasn't very funny, sure some of the sketches caused an occasional smile but that was about it.

In truth the only reason I bought this DVD was because Simon Pegg was a cast member ( well that and it was damn cheap ) and I think I can pretty safely say it's rather unlikely I'll ever watch the series again, if this was the best the series had to offer I don't think I'd like to see the material they didn't include on the DVD.

Computer Woes

I got up this morning as is my habit, took the dog for a walk ( or more truthfully it took me ), came home made myself a coffee and fired up the computer.

Now the fact that it seems to be making the kind of noise I'd expect to hear if someone was forcing a frozen cat through an electric cheese grater probably isn't a good thing - perhaps my long delayed computer upgrade isn't too far into the future after all.

Green Lantern: First Flight

While I don't read as much as I used to I consider myself a comics fan, like most kids ( and later adults ) I had my favourite titles and others I enjoyed but I didn't go out of my way to pick up every issue, Green Lantern was a title I enjoyed but I didn't go out of my way to pick up every issue.

Being a fan of comics I try to ( eventually ) watch every comic related movie / TV series that comes along, if it dosen't feature one of my favourite characters I tend to be in no hurry to see it and that was the case with Green Lantern: First Flight - that was what I would call a mistake.

Green Lantern: First Flight was a fantastic movie, it covers Green Lantern's origin in around 5 minutes, it tells the viewer everything they need to know if they aren't familiar with the character without taking up half the movie, from there it's straight into an galaxy spanning adventure that includes The Guardians, the Green Lantern Corps and Sinestro and despite the movies fairly short running time ( approx 75 minutes ) it all makes sense and is still enjoyable to anyone who was totally unfamiliar with the characters.

I hope the producers of the upcoming live action Green Lantern Movie see this film, I think there is a lot that could be learned from this movie that would help them to do Green Lantern justice but I think I for would rather seen a sequel to this outstanding animated movie.

20th Century Here I Come !

I finally broke down and did it, yes I dragged myself firmly into the 20th Century, I don't know that I have much to say or that if I do anyone could possibly find it interesting - time will tell.

Basically I'm a sci-fi, fantasy and horror fan who has managed not to grow up, I'm also married and have a child, well a 17 year old daughter ( it's almost the same thing minus the hormones ).

To anyone who may read this Welcome, hopefully it won't be a complete waste of time.