Trailers

Seen a few trailors recently that have got me a little excited. The Transformers teaser didn't exactly show you anything and the movie is still a year away but it got me straight off.
It did what any good teaser does, it teased. It made you want more. It gave you a not quite satisfying enough glimpse of a robot and raised a few questions.
Another is Spider-man 3 which opposite to the TF teaser actually shows quite a bit of footage.
Lots of Spidey in the symbian suite and a glimpse of sandman, plus a few other characters which are going to become quite important in the continuing story. It showed quite a few scenes and gave away a few things(Gwen Stacey) but all in all I liked but again it's a year away.
Last trailer I've just scene was for Rocky Balboa or Rocky 6. It....was.....awesome. Now I'm a big fan of the rocky film (1-4 mainly) and I was already looking forward to this. Now after seeing the trailer I just need to see this film. Rocky looks old, he sounds punch drunk but you can still see the spark there, the desire, the heart that got Rocky his shot. it seems they've done the wise thing and not ignored the fact he's old. it looks brilliant and looks like they have captured what made Rocky so good in the first place.

The Marvel Universe

Now I'm not a huge comic geek or anything(although some times I wish I was, comic geek seem to be in vogue right now) but I do enjoy a good graphic novel.
I only began reading them a few years back when I purchased The Crow, the graphic novel that spawned the movie. This was an awesome book and set the flame burning. Since then I've read a few books each from the 100 bullets series and a few from the Preacher series, plus some Frank miller stuff and also some Kevin Smith books(I am a Kevin Smith Geek)
I'd never really got into the whole super hero thing though, I love Batman but he's not a superhero. Then some one at work started bring in Marvel comics to read. I didn't think they could be as dark or engaging as the adult oriented books I'd been reading. I couldn't have been more wrong. Marvel is doing some awesome stuff right now with some of the best art work I've ever seen. 2 series stand out for me from what I've read so far. The Ultimates series and the Civil War series which has just started.
The Ultimates is brilliant bringing what I believed to be tired and outdated superheros like Captain America right back into the 21st century. The art is great and the story is gripping. They're all amazingly paced and keep you gripped and wanting more at the end.
The Civil war story arc which I said just started is looking to be awesome. All the well known and not so well known Superheros are there and split down the middle. Captain America leading one side Iron man leading the other and leading them to what looks like one big ass super hero fight. It's so exciting. If you're the least bit interested in comics or graphic novels I urge you to try some of the new Marvel stuff. It's amazing.

Speed cameras

Felt like coming here and expressing my views on speed camera's.
Now my opinion has always been that if you obey the law and stay at or under the speed limit camera's shouldn't concern you. People moan that they're just a money making scheme for the police, but the police can only make money because people break the law. Normal law abiding citizens begin ranting about the unjust nature of speed cameras. I never understood how they could make the argument. Surely if people break the law they should be punished in some way?
I still feel pretty much the same bar one thing I now realize that we are overly dependent on them. Speed camera's will generally catch people who are passing through an area or people who are feeling a little absent minded. This doesn't catch the worst offenders though, the people who live in the area and know the locations of cameras. These people will happily speed around fully secure in the knowledge that they know where the camera's are.
I will never be against speed camera's if you speed you should be punished but I don't believe they can solve the problem of speeding.
If it were up to me I'd but restrictions on engine sizes and little chips in the cars and all speed limit sign posts which will make it impossible to speed. If you're caught bypassing the chips you risk heavy penalties.
I'm sure no one likes that idea but it's the only way I feel we can solve speeding.

The annoying habits of women

So after 3 odd years of pretty much no meaningful contact with a women I'm now pretty fed up with them.
If you didn't read my earlier trials and tribulations with a certain girl read that this will make more sense.
So after telling this girl to leave me alone she appeared when I came back on holiday and began to talk to me. That annoyed me but not only that she started flirting with the guy who sits next to me. Now I was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt over being an evil scheming bitch but now I'm not, she's an evil scheming bitch and cock tease. She pretends to be Lesbian some times to get attention and then gives everyone who gives her the time of day the come on. Luckily the guy who sits next to me is already well aware of the way she works and has made his point of view clear.
Secondly is another women. A girl I've been sleeping with for over 4 years give or take. We've now decided to try and make more of it, I'm not sure it'll work but I'll try. But she's got this guy trying it on all the time. They had some thing a few months back and now he keeps contacting her. So while I'm round she's barely talking to me and everytime her phone beeps she's leaping to answer it. Of course this pisses me off. Now she won't see me tonight because she's going in the shower. She has the whole day off but she must go in this evening. Now knowing her I think this is probably true(She's a little strange) but there is a part of me that thinks some thing not quite right is going on. I'm a jealous type as it is.
Oh yeah and she's going bowling with him and a load of others on Saturday. Yip.....E

The Holiday is over

I'm back after a week away from work. I'd hoped to have lots of interesting stories about what I got up to during my time off but I ended up sitting in front of the TV all week.(Although it is a very big TV at the moment, more on that later)
I did go to Alton Towers though which was good fun, the new rides are all pretty good. One big gripe though. It's not worth the price anymore. £30 a ticket and then £4 parking for what is in actual fact about 5 minutes actual ride time. That's considering it's busy and you only get to go on the bigger rides because the ques are all an hour long. I can'believeve they're actually allowed to charge to park.Rubbish. We had buy one get one free tickets so it wasn't as bad.

As for the TV well it's more the living room wall, my Flat mate Paul(See his Blog) borrowed a projector from his dad. It'truly awesome. We've had Goldeneye on there, we've had Fightnight on the 360, the boxers are like 6 feet tall. We've had a couple of movies on it, the highlight for me being Star wars and of course we've had the football on there.
I really don't know how I'll cope with a normal TV now.

Transformers: The "new" movie

Found out yesterday that they've started work on a live action Transformers movie. Obviously the Transformers themselves will be CGI(although I did hear that they had considered having people in suites. Not sure I believe that though)
I really want to think this movie will be great but as much as I try and convince myself I can't get over the fact I'm not 8 anymore and we're talking about robots from space.
If you want to experience some of the funniest discussion ever heard, head on over to the IMDB Transformers message board. It's full of angry guys that must be at least in their mid 20's to remeber G1 Transformers(the original) bitching about the fact this movie may not live up to their childhood memories.
Most complaints seem to be about which tranformers should or should not appear which must have always been a concern for the filmakers. You obviously can't have them all, so who do you choose.
I'm looking forward to this film a lot but I'm pretty sure it'll be rubbish but maybe in a good trashy way(Micheal Bay directing). I know it won't live up to my childhood memories but nothing ever would. That's the problem with theses remakes of childhood classics, they can't possibly live up to what people remember as a child. You're imagination is in overdrive as a kid and all those memories are boosted because as a kid you can believe in these things. Now as adults it's harder to suspend that disbelief and just immerse yourself in the world that's been created for you.
It's one of the things I most miss about childhood, the fact that I can't just loose myself in my imagination anymore.

Swift cover and Big brother

Just 2 little gripes I feel I need to get off my chest. Swift cover are the car insurance people who advertise the fact they have no call centers so obviously their service must be better.
Well working in a call centre type environment them showing call centre staff as chickens was bound to cause some offence. That's not my main problem though. I'm a realist, I'm aware if how difficult call centers can be, never talking to the same person, missing information, information that hasn't been noted properly, name less, faceless people who really sound like they want to be some where else. But they are a necessary evil for all large company's who offer services to a large number of people. A company like Vodafone who I work for would not be able to offer the amount of customer service needed if it weren't for call centers.
Swift cover and a few other company's are now not using call centers at all so I'm guessing all is done over web pages and email, great until you have to wait 3 days for a response to the simplest of requests. There are already many companies out there who solely use email to help customers and from my experience and from the experience of people I know they are a nightmare. Slow to respond and difficult to get any sense out of.
There's no accountability with emails. With a phone call you have no choice but to talk to the customer, you have to solve their problem else they just won't go. With email they can decide whether or not to respond and you're just sat there waiting like a lemon. Sorry Swift cover tell me you'll cut my insurance and we may talk, but I'm not convinced when I can't call up and shout when you fuck my claim up.

Now on to the Hell that is Big brother. Now I'm doing exactly what they want. I'm talking about it but that's the genius of Big brother, love it or hate it you feel the need to make comment.
This years Big brother unlike the previous ones holds no appeal for me. In previous years I've been ready to ignore it but then slowly I get a little sucked in as the show unfolds. Not happening this year. From what I've heard and the little I've seen these housemates are utterly unlikable.
The one thing I want to mention though is how these are supposed to be a cross section of the country!!! I've never met anyone even closely resembling any of those people and I've lived all over this country. These people are not normal people, they do not represent the public at large, they're caricatures and the sad thing is they think they mean some thing.
I was off work last week and flicked across to big brother. It's the middle of the day and they're sat in the garden about to eat. A perfectly normal scene. Then you notice that all of them are dressed to the nines, they're all done up to their trendy maximum and this isn't for a challenge or anything, just for lunch. This made me truly realize these people are not all this country is about. If me or any one I know went into that house I guarantee we'd take, 2 T-shirts, 2 pairs of shorts, a pair of trousers, 2 pairs of socks and 2 pairs of boxers. Wash my other stuff while I'm wearing one set.
You wouldn't see me wearing shoes or trainers for the entire time I was in their.
I know these people are on TV but it's ridiculess.
Moan over I guess. Sorry if the entire thing is a bit scattered, trying to do it quickly during my lunch.