26 Years Ago

That's when I was born. Since then, I have been witness to a lot of things in this world. I was alive for and remember, in no particular order whatsoever:
The Challenger Shuttle exploding after launch.
The Columbia Shuttle exploding during reentry.
When a great Pope died.
Two wars in the Gulf.
When Superman got a costume and powers change- this made the RTE 9:00 news!
The day Zig and Zag first appeared on TV.
When Bosco left TV.
The morning the Twin Towers in New York were destoryed in an act of terrorism.
When the Russian space-station, MIR was brought down.
When the Berlin Wall was broken down.
When Dermot Morgan, the voice of Scrap Saturday and face of Father Ted died on a Sunday morning. The news was broke to me by a visibly shaken Dave Fanning on The Beat-Box.
When Princess Diana was also killed on a (different) Sunday morning, or possibly late Saturday night.
When Wolverines real name was revealed to be James Howlett.
The first time Ireland got into the soccer World Cup, for Italy 1990.
When Taytos cost 10p.
When the smoking ban was brought into Irish law.
When Toybiz Marvel Legends appeared on the market.
When my little brother Stephen and my even littler (I know) sister Margaret-Ann were born. I was only three when Philip was born, so though I was alive, I don't really remember it. I've been told I was more proud to be an older brother than my parents were to be parents of another beautiful, healthy boy.

I know I've been around for tonnes more, but these are what spring to mind in just ten minutes. The order is unimportant. One thing inspired another, or stray thoughts just wandered through. I wrote them as I thought of them, so although becoming a brother was one of the best things that ever happened to me, it stays at the end of the list, because it came to me last. So order does not represent importance! As soon as I press the "Publish Post" button, I'll think of a dozen more anyway.

Today was a good day. Breakfast with friends was amazing. All you can eat, great food cooked just right. For what we got, €10 was good, but I think a bit expensive for a regular thing. Maybe on special occasions.

Headed into town and bought some shopping. I cracked and bought Trauma Centre for myself. Hey, it's my birthday! Who's gonna stop me?!?

Back home, hung out, played computer games for a bit then had a great barbeque. Really nice. And it was the first of the summer too. Here's to many more!

Now, I'm exhausted. Time for bed.

Happy Birthday to Me

Well, according to the little clock on the monitor here, it is officially the 28th of May, making me officially 26 years and roughly 9 months old.

I should be happy, but as the clock ticked over, I found myself slumped in a chair silently watching the final episode of season 1 of Boston Legal. I'm not upset I'm older. I don't feel 26. I don't feel 20! I'm not upset at how my life is at this moment. In fact, I love it. As I've said here before, I have the best friends ever, the best partner ever and life is pretty much complete for the time being... next big step is kids I guess, and Claire won't let me yet! That's ok though. I don't want kids until I have a job and all the other stuff I need to afford the little parasites.

We're going for breakfast tomorrow to a local hotel, and for €10 it's pretty much an all you can eat! That's certainly not upsetting. I'm most definately going to get stuff (even if I don't really want anything). How bad is that! I love opening wrapping. People say kids get more fun out of the packaging than the product. I still do. I love cutting open a new action figure box, or ripping the paper off a present. I'm going to get do all those tomorrow, most likely, and regardless of what I find inside, I know I'll love it, because it came from people that are special to me.

So why am I upset. Honestly, I think it's because I haven't eaten properly, or my blood-sugar levels are low. Seriously. Just writing all this has cheered me up already. My "upsettedness" can't be because something happened to me. It can't be because something is going to happen to me. I guess it must just be under-the-skin biological stuff. Sounds right, and my grumbling tummy agrees.

I'm really getting the hang of this "secret-readable-by-the-world-diary-thing". Sometimes, all you need to do is write to get to understand what you can't express. Ghaa! That sounds awful. How do I say it properly? If I hadn't started this thing a month ago, I would have gone to bed, still feeling upset and knowing that I shouldn't be. Now, I get to write about it and learn why I feel this way.

So. After all that, I get to go to bed older, wiser and happier.

Tomorrow's going to be awesome. Er... that is, technically, later today...

From Pizza Boy to President

Nintendo of America has a new President, in the rather stricking figure of Reggie Fils-Aime. According to the article on Joystiq Reggies past jobs have included time with Pizza Hut and Procter & Gamble! Um... I guess there's some connection there...

Anyway, though I seriously doubt Reggie reads my humble blog, let me just wish him the best of luck in his new position, and congratulations on the well deserved promotion.

I've seen this guy in action, doing his marketing magic on stage at the Nintendo E3 keynote speech this year. He is awesome to watch and listen to, and seems to genuinely enjoy his job and the company he is working for. WARNING: That link is to a Google Video of the entire hour long keynote speech. Worth watching if you have the time.

Under his leadership, Nintendo is guaranteed to go from strength to strength.

Superman! We Need You

Well Lois might think you're a chump, but you're our only hope for this summer now.

X-Men kinda failed to hit home for me. I was disappointed by it as a movie. Sure, it had some great moments, some excellant fanboy dialogue and events, but it just wasn't good enough.

I'm not going to be so arrogant as to point out moments I didn't like right here. There are people reading this that haven't seen it yet.

However, I hate people who don't back up their arguements with facts, or simply post statements like "That was gay". As such I will say I enjoyed the movie. The camera work and directing was ok. There were some scenes that played too heavily for me, in a "look how evil he really is" sorta way. The music never bothered me. It didn't stand out like some of the pieces in the earlier movies, but it was never bad. The make-up and effects were awesome. Beast was really well done, Mystique was great as always and Storm actually got to show off cool powers.

For now, that is all. I really wanted to love this movie, but I just can't. It's enjoyable, but ultimately disappointing.

Bring on Superman! The more I see of this, the more I'm looking forward to it. And now that I've seen X-Men, the Man of Steel may be the hit of the summer. Brian Singer wins again! The newest, and so far best, trailer is available here. Right click on the link and pick "save target as", or "save link as" for you FireFox users to download this trailer and watch it over and over again at home!

GhostRider Trailer

Nic Cage's GhostRider isn't due out until February next year, but there's a trailer up already. Gotta admit, this looks very interesting! The CGI needs some work still. The bones are too clean, and the flames look... well... CG.

I'm happy to see that ego did not hinder style. I expected that the majority of the time as GhostRider himself would just be done as Nics head on fire to allow the audience to always see Nic. I figured the only time we'd see the skull effect was during the final battle, when GhostRider really cuts loose, as always happens. Thankfully, the trailer proves me wrong. Yay!

Oh, and if you download the iPod version and watch it in VLC, you can watch the bit where he falls off the bike in slow motion. Yeouch, that looks like it hurt!

RoboCop Versus Neo

This wins the internet for me tonight!

The guys that put this together are incredible. The lighting is perfectly matched in all shots and that compositing is amazing! Enjoy the show!

Also, check out some more of AMDS work. Some very nice stuff. A re-edited Qui-Jon versus Darth Maul fight, a funnier version of how things could have gone, Yoda sings "What A Wonderful World" and Scrat from Ice Age causes even more trouble!

Slightly different from all those, AMDS also has the history of the world, and how it might all end summed up in about six and a half minutes. It's beautifully done.

And finally, while I'm on a YouTube binge, this is just hilarious. What an evil ladybug!!

Some Additions

I've put in "Currently Reading" and "Currently Watching" sections on the sidebar. That's about it really.

Might have more later. Work now though.

Oh, and Boston Legal rocks. I've started watching the last few episodes of season 1 after I got distracted by other stuff previously. William Shatner is hilarious, though I think James Spader as Alan Shore is the highlight of the show for me.

File Storage?

Does anyone out there know a site that store text files, or Adobe files or stuff along those lines.

I'm looking for a site that does the job Flickr does for photos and YouTube or GoogleVideo does for movie files, except I want it for text files.

Basically, I'd like to upload short stories I'd like to write to somewhere people can read them. Most are fan-fiction of a sort, though they are usually severely reimagined versions. I have a great idea for a BraveStarr series of stories, and I have a very fleshed out idea for a fresh take on Batman that a friend of mine did a lot of work on.

I'd like to write them up and post them somewhere people can read them if they wanted too. Any suggestions?

Dinosaurs!

As promised, I went and bought some DVDs to continue my retail therapy.

I've always wanted to own the Jurassic Park trilogy, and now I do. Once home, I put on the bonus disk that comes in this set and enjoyed some of the fun extras. If you're interested, there's a bit about the huricane that hit the original movie, some dancing Compys done for the sequal and I don't think we even checked out the extras for the third movie. I'm already getting the feeling "Jurassic Park 3: Always Guarantee The Cheque Clears First Before Risking Life And Limb For Another God-Damn Kid" won't be taken out of the box for some time!

But we did watch both the first and second movie today. They are both flawed, the second more-so, but still very enjoyable. The action is well executed, the acting... um.. isn't awful and the special effects, especially the dinos themselves are fantastic. In the first especially, the humor, action, tension and moral story all go together perfectly, so that instead of getting bored while listening to the "should man play God" debates, you are just thankful for the time to relax before the next onslaught of fun. Of course, I enjoyed the debates, wheather on playing God, chaos theory pobability, whatever. They were some of my favourite moments in the books. "Red Queen", "Gamblers Ruin", all that stuff. I love it.

Heck the very fact that I remembered both those terms shows how much impact they had on me. I even remembered the principle for "Gamblers Ruin", though I forgot what "Red Queen" was about until I did a quick Google search.

And finally, there is a special feature on the disk for the first movie where the scene with the Raptors chasing the kids in the kitchen is done using stop-motion technology. Harryhausen Velociraptors FTW! Although, everytime the dolls for the kids turned up, I was reminded of Robot Chicken.

Edit: Misspelt "cheque"! D'oh.

Retail Therapy

When I started this blog (not too long ago!) I promised not to spend time moaning and whining about the crap stuff in my life.

But sometimes crap stuff does happen, and I get frustrated. This is especially the case when I don't feel that I'm entirely to blame. Or to blame at all. I'm not going to go any further here, because I'll just end up writing a thesis on my day and the reason I'm annoyed.

However, I deal with this buy shopping. Yes, like women do, except I don't shop for clothes. I buy toys.

So today I went all Dr. Who and got a set of two radio controlled Daleks, and a nifty (man, I don't use that word nearly enough!) TARDIS moneybox.

In the two pictures I have posted here, Spidey is hiding from the Daleks in the TARDIS, cause he owes them rent money. Spider-Man's such a moocher.

Anyway, I have tomorrow off work and plan to pick up some DVDs to make me forget even more how I hate my job with a firey passion... Oops. Did I start moaning again?

Got Milk?

OK. I'm just searching YouTube for funny videos to share tonight before I go to bed. I do have work at 6:30 tomorrow morning, but I can stay up another bit!

Anyhow, here's a good one for the "Got Milk" ads campaign from America staring the Avengers and a few extra heroes thrown in for fun. Great costumes though.

This one's got a nice moral played out with a funny twist.

So not only does it give you strong bones, it gives you long bones?

This one made me laugh out loud. Very nice animation, though I thought it was related to the movie "Ice Age" from the title. It's not.

Wow. Milk can do anything! This fact should be taught to every adolescent male on the planet. Great ad. I'm very surprised they got away with it though! I mean, we all know never to cross a woman with PMS!

Mario's Got Milk! Why haven't you?

And finally, here is a multi-award winning "Got Milk" ad. According to the blurb attached, it was directed by Michael Bay! It is hilarious. If you're reading this post but thinking "No way am I clicking all those links" at least do yourself the favour of watching this one. It's worth it.

All this from a guy who gets sick trying to drink milk. I can have milk in cereal, tea, coffee and other stuff, but try to get me to drink a plain glass of milk and I'll actually vomit. Guess that's what happens when you get it shoved down you in primary school for three years.

John Whedon?

This is how more interviews should go. I gain more and more repect for Joss every day. He just seems to be a genuine, straight-up nice guy. It's so rare to find that anywhere, and even harder when you're looking in the tv/movie creator demographic. Those guys are usually dicks.

And because I really can't get enough Whedon in my viewing diet, here is a clip of Joss accepting the Film 2005 "Film of the Year" award. He only appears at the end, but he's as funny as always.

Civil War

Okay. I've been trying not to get excited about this, but the first issue was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I've been burned way too often by Mark Millar sweet beginings that preface an utterly rubbish ending. Superman: Red Son was one of the few stories that he's written that has a good ending. Actually, it has a great ending. One that totally blew me away. I was very impressed by Millars abilities in this story, but unfortunately he has yet to prove to me that he's not a one-hit-wonder! If you haven't read it, buy this now! You will not regret it.

Dammit! I've been trying to find a nice link to show off Red Son, but the only decent one I can find is a Wikipedia entry, and that totally gives away the neat twist. Just trust me. You'll enjoy Red Son.

But I've gotten off topic.

Civil War. I'm with Captain America, as the banner currently on the right of the page states. I'm surprised at who is against him, siding with Iron Man. Spider-Man?!? Surely he would be against registration! Maybe the bribe of a new (rubbish) costume was enough to buy Spideys vote.

Anyway. Go Cap! Kick those SHIELD soldiers around and show 'em who's boss! You da man!

Freelance Police

They're back!

Well. Almost. But this is looking good. Pity it doesn't use the cartoons voices, though they do mention that in the FAQ.

I like the idea of episodic games, and I hope for Telltales sake that it works. Even if the episodes don't sell as expected, the "Season" DVD should fly off the shelves. I know I'm going to be picking it up for our place. Might even get an episode or two as they are released.

Bone is onto its second episode, although these are not quite the same. Where Sam & Max are going to have a very episodic feeling with an overall plot, Bone plays more like parts of a movie. Again, this looks interesting enough to pick up once it's finished.

Flickr Hulks Up

Arg! Flickr has gone all Incredible Hulk as part of the newest update. Now titled Flickr Gamma, the new look has more dropdown menus, more images on the first page and moves the Sets icons from the left to the right of the page.

My first impression on this new look is: Me no likey.

I'm sure it'll grow on me or something, but right now I'm not a fan. One of the things I loved about Flickr was how clean it looked. The first page had a single column of pictures and everything was sparse with lots of white. Now I feel the page looks cluttered.

Too many images. Too much stuff. Not enough white.

And as you can tell from this blog, I like white. It's just so clean and easy to look at. Plus it shows up smudges on my monitor real good!

Photo Update

I've added tonnes of new pictures to my Flickr account, including a load taken by Cian, but they aren't up on his account, so I'm ok. Still, I'm worried that this repeated referencing of Cian in my blog may start to look less like friendly acknowledgement and more like stalking...

In other news... Nothing. Bah.

That's the Second Biggest...

This thing is hoooooge! I wonder how many of those actually exist. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Highlander creed of "There can only be one" was true of that monstrosity! Though at only $100million it's a steal.

Incidentally, the new Metroplex from the Transformers Cybertron line is supposed to be one. Although he does resemble it, I think it's still a rubbish figure. It looks so cheap and plasticy in those pictures.

Oh My God!!

I squealed at such a high pitch when I saw this that I think I made Claires ears bleed!


As an aside: Should I avoid embedding video like this in my blog? I'm still learning what the popular thing to do is. Is it annoying or handy? To quote Bear in a Big Blue House: What do you think?

E3 stuff

Ok, ok. So I know I just posted about how I had very little to say this week, but then I started reading about E3 from Joystiq. Here's the interesting stuff for me.

New Super Smash Bros!! The most played game on my GameCube! This is the first I've heard of this! Why?!? Er... I guess that's what E3 is for! Sweet.

New Resident Evil exclusive to Nintendo. We might still be losing RE5, but at least Wii is getting an RE game to itself! The controller could make this a helluva fun gaming experience! The thought of getting frightened by a monster, jumping in real life and watching as your character onscreen swings wildly around, reacting to the Wiimote tilt-sensor is just all too funny to me!

A hands-on impression of the Wiimote (yes, that's what it's been nicknamed!). I'm personally all-in for this controller. I love the innovation, design, and the game-styles that are getting released to use it. This is going to be a blast to use. I remember people talking about the "gimmick" of the DS touch-screen, yet now we have so many games using it in a variety of ways. It's so clever and perfect for interacting with a virtual world in the right games. I'm just glad they know when not to use it, á la Mario Kart DS!

So it's pretty obvious that I'm a huge Nintendo fan. In fact, most of my family is. We have a few GameBoys, two GameBoy Advances and a GB SP, two DS's, a NES, a SuperNES, two N64's, two GameCubes and a tonne of games for them all between my home in Tipperary and here in Cork (that explains all of the doubling up on the consoles. We're not so bad as to have two of a console in one household!). Some of the game highlights include two copies each of the two Donkey Konga games, as well as two full sets of Bongos (that's eight in total for those of you with mathemetics difficulties!), the light-gun for the NES and the Super Scope for the SuperNES, three WaveBird controllers and the hard-to-get game disc that contained GameCube playable versions of Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Master Quest and Majoras Mask. Once the Nintendo Wii is released later this year, we'll have two of them also! Nintendo love us!

Mostly Working

Nothing exciting has happened recently. Just been working all week. Kinda boring.

I guess E3 has thrown up some interesting stuff- PS3 controllers will have motion sensors, proving once again that while Sony may be the better selling, Nintendo is the innovator in the gaming industry.

I saw Mission Impossible III. I loved it! While it isn't the "best movie ever", it's an awesome fun start to the summer movies. My rating is "Will Buy it on DVD in the Sales". I'm very annoyed at reports that the lower than expected gross for the movie is being blamed on Tom Cruise. I think the fact that MI:2 sucked beyond all comprehension is more to blame for the crappy first weekend profits. The very fact that it took in $10 million less than MI:2 proves that profits are rarely based on the quality of the actual end product. Speaking of MI:2, this newest installment in the series ignores absolutely anything that might have happened in the second one, so you can watch MI and MI:3 without feeling like you've missed anything. Yay!

Living up to the title

Well, today really was "one terrific day".

I made breakfast for a bunch of friends at my place this morning, with a lot of help from Bob.

Karen, Sinead, Bob and Jp joined myself and Claire for a big fry-up. It was great. Normally we go into town and get food in the same place every Sunday, but this week we thought we'd try something different. And it worked out really well.

After breakfast, Karen, Bob, Sinead and Claire headed out and Jp and me just hung around looking at tonnes of photos on Flickr and just generally surfing the net.

Once everyone was back, we all watched Superman II in preperation for Superman Returns. It's hilariously bad a lot of the time. Celophane S-shields, telekinesis, teleportation, creating multiple copies of onesself... man, Kryptonians gained all sorts of weird powers during that movie.

Still, it gave us "Come and kneel before Zod!": one of the greatest lines in comicbook movie history, and right up there with "Play it again, Sam" as it is also usually misquoted.

Just for clarity, it isn't Humphrey Bogarts character, Rick that says the only line even remotely similar to the misquote, it's Ilsa, played by Ingrid Bergman, who says "Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake." The closest Rick gets is in this short conversation (cut-n-pasted from Imdb.com):

Rick: You know what I want to hear.
Sam: [lying] No, I don't.
Rick: You played it for her, you can play it for me!
Sam: [lying] Well, I don't think I can remember...
Rick: If she can stand it, I can! Play it!

And that ain't even close.

Muppets!

Arg! What with our two blogs looking so similar already, I really wanted to avoid repeating stuff Cian posted about.

However, previous posts have spoken about how much I love the Muppets, so I really, really have to link to this post from Cian! God I love the Muppets, and Sesame Street too. I have many fond memories of getting home from Mass on a Sunday morning and turning on the tv just to watch Sesame Street.

And I loved those Yip-yip aliens! Super thanks to Cian for linking this, not only for the direct link to the Yip-yips, but also allowing me to find all those other Sesame Street clips! Check out Johnny Cash singing "Don't Take Your Gun to Town" only... um... not!

I would love to be able to get some of these clips off of YouTube to put on a CD for my little brother and sister. They live in no-internet-land, so won't get to see these. Boo.

Random Shinyness Part 1

Of many! These posts are going to be mostly me just spewing out a bunch of stuff I found out about that's either got me excited, curious, terrrified, whatever! Mostly shiney stuff that caught my attention. From these "random" posts you'll see how very easily amused I am. I'll try to keep these to one a month, but particularly eventful weeks may need their own post!

Blackcurrant fruit pastilles! Now they are selling packs with only the purple ones! Man. Those guys know their market!

The Star Wars we all love is finally coming to DVD! But on limited release! Get in fast!Does this deserve a post all to itself? Too late!

I love The Muppets! Season One on DVD is getting a lot of playtime in my place. The other seasons can't come fast enough.

And on the subject of the Muppets, Jim Hensons The Dinosaurs and The Storyteller are both coming to DVD. They will be mine.

I found permanent markers that come in all sorts of colours, including yellow! I think I'm gonna get some white t-shirts and draw my own images. Pictures might follow. If I ever actually do it.

And finally, this. An awesome prank pulled on a Best Buy in America. Funny becuase it was entirely harmless at the end of the day, and even some of the staff got a few giggles during it. A great read, and don't forget to check out the Flickr photos linked from the very bottom of the page.

And classy trailers at that

Ok. Three in less than 24 hours is ridiculous. Oh how I loved Pierce Brosnans Bond. GoldenEye still ranks as my favourite of the Bond movies. Oh how I'd love to see the briefly mentioned Brosnan/Tarantino take on this.

But Casino Royal is looking so, so perfectly Bond. High action, classy spy-stuff, sexy eye candy. And less gadgets I've been lead to believe! Ok, so Bond is all for the gadgets, but recently we've had a bit of a gadget overload (see Die Another Day). Going back to essential spy stuff could be good for the franchise.

Getting run over by trailers

Ouchies! This is going to be a good summer.

The newest Superman Returns trailer looks sweet. I'm really looking forward to this movie now. Gotta admit, it took me some time to warm to the new look, but I'm on-board now.

And speaking of on-board, the newest Pirates of the Caribbean trailer went up today too! This too looks awesome.

Elizabeth: There will come a moment when you will have the chance to do the right thing.
Captain Jack: I love those moments... I like to wave at them as they pass by.

How many is too many?

In a shocking revelation, I have 20 Spider-Man action figures, ranging from my tiny Spidey on my phone to my gigantic 18 inch movie Spider-Man.

This is shocking, because I could have sworn I had more.

Of course, you know this means I can now buy more and not feel guilty. I thought I had over 25 by now, so I'm free to buy at least 5 more Spideys! Thwip!

I'm a busy bee today

And now I have a Flickr account too!

I'm gonna have to pay for it. The free option just isn't enough, especially to get started. Oh well, have to borrow my Claires credit card again. She won't let me have one because she thinks... knows that I'll go nuts buying stuff on ebay! I always need more Spider-Man action figures!

Still here

Spent most of last night messing with the code on the page just to get little things to work. I'm totally computer code illiterate, so it took some work!

While I'm here, sorry to Cian from Under an Orange Sky (linked to on the side bar) for making my site look so like his. He's a good friend in real life, so I'm always checking out his blog and thought when I wanted to start my own, I may as well use Blogger too. Unfortunately it seems I just couldn't find another template that looks as nice as this one. Oh well. You know what they say about "great minds"!

Now that I have a blog, maybe I'll get a Flickr account too!!

What's in a name

Well, I figure this is as good a place as any to start my entry into the world of web-logging.

So, why the blog title? I haven't even seen the movie in question!

The quote, a larger section of which is used underneath the title, although taken from Rebel Without a Cause, was actually first read by me in a Marvel comic called Runaways, by Brian K. Vaughn.

In many ways, this quote is what I want this blog to be about:

Firstly, it is a place for me to chat about comics, toys, books, games, and all the other crazy stuff I'm interested in. As the quote holds more meaning for me in coming from a comic rather than a critically acclaimed movie, I kinda think reflects on how I see the world!
Secondly, the quote is full of hope. Hope for tomorrow. And this blog will hopefully (urg... pardon the pun) be whiny-free and not ultra depressing. Sure, if crappy stuff happens to me, I might use this to vent, but those posts will probably get deleted pretty fast once I cool down! In general, I lead a good life. I'm happy, I have a great girlfriend (actually, we're engaged, but I hate the word "fiancee"... is that even the correct spelling?), I have the best set of friends I could ever hope for, and I'm far from needing anything. So although my life is far from perfect, there is little in it I should really complain about!
And thirdly, I was going to use "Tomorrow, Maybe You'll Be Gone" as the blog title instead, and while I still like this concept of living life to the max every day, I thought it sounded a little depressing. Also, it was too long to use as the page address!

So that's my first post! I'm gonna go mess with the settings some more!