Big Brother - not such a dead loss after all
[Posted 09:59 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Yet another Big Brother post, and this year's run is still only in its first week. Who would have thought? I've been watching the nightly highlights (i.e. the soap opera version, where the narration and editing creates storylines out of fragmentary snatches of conversation) and glancing at the live coverage every now and then, and I have to say that, contrary to my earlier assumptions, they've actually picked a pretty interesting set of housemates this year. Sure, most of them are as thick as two planks and a fair number of them are completely interchangeable, but there are enough interesting participants to make it worth watching.

I'm finding Mary (the witch) absolutely fascinating, by the way. Tonight's episode focused on her 31st birthday (I was surprised - she looks about 22) and the giddy fit she went into when she discovered that her own personal broomstick had been delivered to the house for the special occasion (I'm not kidding) was hilarious to watch... as was her completely straight-faced reply to "Big Brother" telling her not to let anyone ride it in the house: "Oh, I was just going to suggest that. But it's okay for me to ride it, because I have a license." Her particular brand of witchcraft seems to be straight out of Count Duckula and Hammer horror. I'm not sure whether she's insane or just very witty. Either way I think she's great: my favourite to win at this point. I doubt she'll get far with all the Christian housewife voters though.

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Guild Wars
[Posted 11:36 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Played a bit of it this morning for the first time in ages. It's fun. Very fun. Until you complete the first chapter and are forced to team up, that is. Like I said yesterday, so many of these games would be that bit better if they included a single player mode. Given that there are no monthly fees attached to Guild Wars anyway, I don't see what they would have to lose.

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Guild Wars
[Posted 09:38 AM GMT by Whiggles]

I've had Guild Wars for over two weeks now and I must say I really haven't played it much at all. I'm glad it was relatively cheap, as despite superficially seeming better than World of Warcraft (the combat system, for example, is much more refined), it just doesn't seem as fun, and the fact that you are essentially forced to party up doesn't really appeal to me - I tend to prefer solo play rather than feeling obliged to join a team and stick with them until they've accomplished their goals. Both this and World of Warcraft would, in my opinion, be wonderful games if they offered some sort of offline solo play option. I guess I just don't get this whole MMORPG craze. I don't tend to invest enough effort into one game to make them worthwhile.

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Big Brother
[Posted 08:37 AM GMT by Whiggles]

The witch is growing on me. As crazy as it sounds, she seems to have her head screwed on more firmly than any of the other contestants. Some of the ignorant comments thrown her way on last night's episode were just mind-boggling.

"Is you a witch? You ain't gonna cast no spells on us, is you?"

"You is the good kind of witch, intcha? Not the bad kind." "I'm the good kind." "Well that's okay then."

Sometimes I despair for the human race.

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DVD debacle
[Posted 07:40 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Eyes Wide Shut (R2 UK) and Alias: Season 3 (R2 UK) both arrived today.

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Big Brother 6
[Posted 12:18 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Warning: the following article contains much stereotyping and hatred. I'm sorry, I can't help it. That's what happens to you when you enter the freak show that is Big Brother.

Yes, yes, I'm one of those gays you've been hearing about. But don't worry, I won't bum you - I'm much too polite for that.

Yep, it's that time of the year again: the time when a significant portion of the UK becomes completely obsessed with the daily behaviour of twelve complete and utter self-important wankers who will do anything to get on television. That's right, it's Big Brother. Unfortunately, I count myself among the idiots that watch this garbage religiously. (Scratch that, I don't watch it religiously, but I do watch it, which is bad enough.) Every year, I tell myself "never again", and every year I get caught up watching it. It's all pretty mind-numbing, really, but still I tune in every night to find out what wacky antics the contestants have got up to. Please note that by "wacky antics", I mean sitting in the jacuzzi, deciding what to do with the weekly food budget, and occasionally having a disagreement that leads to strong language being uttered.

This year's eye candy. Her looks are her defining characteristic. See, I can't even remember her name.

This year, I won't be exhaustively listing the different contestants and their personalities, but rather only briefly mentioning a select few, because their personalities can be summed up with one of two words: tosser or slapper. The men are the tossers, the women are the slappers. Some are both. Endemol (the company producing the show), in their infinite wisdom, hit on a winning formula fairly quickly: populate the house with as many bisexual, promiscuous 20-somethings as possible in the hopes of at least some of them getting it on. By their very nature, most 20-somethings think about sex 24 hours a day anyway, and by making sure most of them are bisexual, the number of different possible combinations is raised considerably. And hey, if they happen to be promiscuous as well...

Could this man possibly not be a heterosexual? Gasp!

Of course, there are a handful of camp gay men in the house, because that particular minority needs to be represented. Naturally, this being reality TV, the results are anything but realistic as 50% of the men (and, it would seem, 0% of the women) turn out to be flaming queens. Last year, the little bitch Marco proved to be insanely popular due to his habit of prancing around and shrieking like a schoolgirl, so this year, Endemol have gone one step further and inserted three of them! One of them is a 40-year-old black homosexual Conservative (possibly the most unlikely combination ever - by his very nature he is at least more original than most of the contestants), and one is a Muslim who showed up dressed as a woman and clucked around, squealing "Waaaaaazzzup, divas!" all night long. I can't remember the third one, which shows what a strong impression he made on me.

I shall call this man Mr. Chav. We need more of his sort on TV... not.

The non-gay men (all three of them) are comprised of posers, chavs and complete morons, one of whom proudly announced during his audition tape that he hated people who had opinions about important things, like the war in Iraq, the election, global warming and human rights. He also hates left-handed people (sounds like a very well-reasoned argument). Oh, and he made sure that 99% of his nouns were following by the adjective "fucking". What a charmer.

Don't look at her, or she will cast a spell on you!

That's really about it. There's a "witch" as well, who claims to be psychic and to have been abducted by aliens eight times. Despite her sixth sense, though, she couldn't manage to open the door on her way in. Then again, that particular barrier, with its oh-so-unusual "turn the handle and push" mechanism, seemed to flummox most of them. Oh, and she "hates TV produced for the masses". Good to see she sticks by her principles.

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DVD debacle
[Posted 03:51 PM GMT by Whiggles]

A bunch of deliveries today:

Two review copies: Alone in the Dark R1 USA (Dr. Uwe Boll's "masterpiece" - this should make for an interesting write-up) and Creep R2 UK (saw it at the cinema, did not like it one bit, but drew the short straw and will essentially just be recycling my theatrical review with an overview of the DVD features). Also, I bought 21 Grams (R2 UK), which I rented from Blockbuster recently and really enjoyed. The DVD has a great transfer, too - that rare example of 10/10 material.

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New Argento project
[Posted 03:44 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Source: Dark Dreams

Completely out of the blue came the news that Dario had signed to do a new horror portmanteau picture with Tobe Hooper and Monte Hellman. We all knew he had joined Hooper, John Landis, John Carpenter, Roger Corman, Joe Dante etc. for the 13 one-hour TV series MASTERS OF HORROR. But the so-far-untitled anthology (THREE EVIL EYES?) being financed by Japanese backers was a total surprise. Due to start shooting in September, the terror trilogy has been scripted by Dennis Bartok, programme director of the American Cinematheque [...] As the schedule clashes with the TV movie one, and Dario has never directed anything he hasn't written, let's see what happens to this. Am I being overly cynical or is Dario determined to do anything but THE THIRD MOTHER?

Hmmm... not really sure how I feel about this. I suppose I should be thankful that Argento has been more active over the last couple of years than at any other point in his career, despite being of the age at which most people end up retiring, but I'm starting to wonder in The Third Mother will ever be made. Another anthology just doesn't sound that interesting to me, particularly if he isn't writing it himself.

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Whiggles ripped off
[Posted 03:13 PM GMT by Whiggles]

The Dark Side plagiarism saga runs and runs. This morning I discovered that one of my own reviews, for Mute Witness, was stolen and reprinted in one of Dark Side's sister publications, DVD World. Right now I am understandably not particularly amused, and will continue to watch how this develops extremely closely. A class action lawsuit does not appear to be out of the question, especially given the number of individuals and publications that have been affected by Allan Bryce and his dodgy dealings.

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House of Flying Daggers: Limited Edition
[Posted 08:20 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Another day, another review of House of Flying Daggers. I may be a little late in on the act, but my review explains why the R3 Hong Kong Limited Edition release is by far the best available release of this stunning film.

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Lyris in print!
[Posted 09:57 PM GMT by Whiggles]

You may remember Lyris' article on DVNR from a while back, which garnered quite a lot of interest among cartoon fans and kicked up a wonderful amount of hatred for this most horrible of practices. Last week he participated in a phone interview with the Wall Street Journal, the proceeds of which have now been published online. I advise you to check out the article. It's a bit sketchy in places, and it does allow the usual marketing executives and technicians free reign to spew their usual "it looks okay to me" BS, but it has some very useful information and features quotes from the likes of Jerry Beck and former Simpsons director Milton Gray. Apparently there are also images available if you subscribe, but wouldn't ya know it, that costs money.

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New section
[Posted 06:50 PM GMT by Whiggles]

I've added a new section to the site, listing all my DVD reviews for ease of use. Have a look here.

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It's me
[Posted 04:52 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Updates have been a bit thin on the ground over the last couple of days. The reason for that is that I've spent the weekend cleaning out my room for the first time in two or three years, including some cupboards that were filled with old crap from something like 15 years ago, including a Paul Daniels magic kit and Count Duckula EZ Tapestries. Sheesh!

I also decided that I really needed another bookcase. My last one has been full up for years, so any books accumulated since, oh, say, 1997, have merely been gathering dust in piles on the floor. Not any more! I now have a nice, large, new bookcase that will take all my excess books, and also leaves me with plenty of room to stuff CDs and game boxes. (Remember when PC games shipped in huge boxes? Those were the days.)

This afternoon we got a phone call from the local Chief Inspector of Police, prompted by an email Lyris sent to enquire as to why the bobbies never bothered showing up after the incident with the scumbags last Friday. He was, at least, civil enough, claiming that a police car had arrived at the scene of the crime within 12 minutes of the call being made, but hadn't rung our doorbell in case any of the troublemakers were still about and would therefore have been able to see who had made the call. I explained that the buggers in question would surely have been able to see my mum standing being us yelling down the phone that bricks and bottles were being hurled, and that we would have felt more reassured if the police had bothered to check in with us. He said that, if it ever happened again, we should "ring the police". Well, duh.

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Links page updated
[Posted 01:56 PM GMT by Whiggles]

I've updated my Links page with URLs for Spumco artists Nick Cross, Kristy Gordon and Jay Li's web sites.

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2046
[Posted 08:51 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Released today on a decent R0 UK DVD by Tartan Video, Wong Kar Wai's 2046 is a beautiful but ultimately meandering tale of love and obsession, an indirect sequel of sorts to his celebrated In the Mood For Love and featuring a fantastic central performance by Tony Leung. Review at DVD Times.

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Plagiarism in print
[Posted 09:40 AM GMT by Whiggles]

I came across this post at the Latarnia Forums, detailing the mysterious appearance of many web-based reviews of horror movies in issues of Dark Side Magazine, a major worldwide publication. These reviews are being reprinted without the permission of the original authors, and it is becoming readily apparent that this plagiarism has been going on for a long time, possibly years. As of yet it is still not known exactly how wide-ranging this infringement is and if any other writers have been scammed by these bastards. I just thought I would do my bit to get the word out because this is clearly unacceptable, and the people responsible should be made accountable for the copyright violations they are committing.

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Attack of the scumbags
[Posted 10:46 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Well, tonight we had a run-in with a posse of little scumbag teenagers who decided to congregate at our back gate and consume copious amounts of alcohol and tobacco. My dad was all for leaving them be in a "kids will be kids" way, but quickly changed his mind when they took to running in and out of our neighbours' garden, banging windows, trampling flowers and doing who knows what else. He went out to confront them, and my elderly grandpa and myself went for backup. We arrived a little late on the scene to see exactly how it started, but when we got there the little chavs - around a dozen of them - were hurling bottles and bricks at my dad and doing their best to goad him into a fight. Of course, he was more than ready to come to blows, and I'm not sure if he actually hit any of them, but that was clearly exactly what they wanted. My grandpa had to restrain him, and eventually the little shits scarpered, leaving, of course, warnings suggesting under no uncertain terms that they will (a) be back and (b) try to do my dad for assault.

Of course, my mum phoned the police immediately, but an hour and a half after the incident they still haven't shown up. They'll no doubt appear at around midday tomorrow, ask a lot of inane questions and then mooch off, promising to "look into it". In situations like these it's perfectly clear that there's not a lot you can do, and in my opinion when my dad is having to wash blood out of his shirt, it's getting pretty serious. My grandpa, of course, is convinced that all this degenerate behaviour is the result of illegitimate births, illegal immigrants and the Labour government's apparent softness on crime. Frankly I don't care what gutter these little fuckasses crawled from. I'm just thankful they buggered off before any serious harm was done.

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Porco Rosso
[Posted 11:26 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Got a free copy of Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso (R1 Canada) in the mail this morning. Thanks Noel!

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Starcraft: Ghost update
[Posted 11:04 AM GMT by Whiggles]

After more than a year of inactivity, Blizzard have updated their web site for Starcraft: Ghost, their upcoming console action game set in the Starcraft world. This comes hot on the news of their acquisition of developer Swingin' Ape Studios, the studio with the stupidest name known to man, who will now, it seems, be known as "Blizzard Console", doing the impossible and coming up with an even stupider name than their previous one. Personally, I don't own a console and don't have any plans to do so, so it looks like I won't be playing this game, but it is heartening that they're not completely abandoning the Starcraft universe. Personally, with E3 starting today, I was seriously hoping they would announce Starcraft II for PC, but it looks like that isn't going to happen. Oh well, maybe at ECTS.

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Warner give us the shaft
[Posted 10:40 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Right now I am more than a little ticked off. Why? In a nutshell, I feel that I have been lied to by Warner Home Video and that a review I wrote could have led to copies being bought of a release that does not deserve to be bought.

The issue in question is the Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection, which I reviewed back in November 2004 at DVD Times as part of the Loaded247 deal. At the time, it was known that three cartoons in the set had been released in an edited form, which at the time was made out to be an accident. Warner publicly admitted to this situation and claimed to be preparing a replacement master. I therefore urged people to buy the cut set and simply mail in their faulty disc for a replacement when the new master was completed.

A recent chat, however, now completely pisses on this, stating that Warner has no plans to rectify this problem. Indeed, closer inspection suggests that this was intentional, and that future releases in the Spotlight Collection will also be cut. To cut a long story short, I'm extremely angry about this and feel that, despite all their promises, Warner are once more up to their old tricks and are proverbially screwing fans of classic animation yet again. I know feel more than a little guilty for encouraging people to buy this set, especially considering the zero-tolerance stance I took on an earlier UK Tom and Jerry DVD release, giving it a zero out of ten for being edited. Right now, I strongly feel that my review of the Spotlight Collection set needs to be updated and the scores replaced with zeros. In any event, this, coupled with severe DVNR gaffes both in the Spotlight Collection set and the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2, has severely shaken my faith in Warner.

In Warner's words:

Warner Home Video has recently released the Tom & Jerry Spotlight Collection: The Premiere Volume two-disc DVD. There have been some questions about which versions of these cartoon shorts are available on the DVD set (edited vs. uncut). The Spotlight Collection contains a variety of original animated shorts produced between 1943-1956, including uncut versions of some early cartoons that were first shown in theaters, along with some versions edited for television. The DVD packaging correctly refers to the cartoon shorts as "remastered"; it does not state that all the shorts are uncut.

So we can only expect uncut material if it explicitly states on the packaging that it is uncut? Guess I should steer clear of those releases of Citizen Kane and Casablanca then, since by Warner's logic, if it don't say it on the tin, then you ain't got a leg to stand on. And while you're at it, howsabout cutting Dooley Wilson out of Casablanca next time you "remaster" it? His character's a pretty offensive racial stereotype, isn't he? What's that you say? You wouldn't dream of doing that? No? Then why the hell do you think it's acceptable to do just that to these Tom and Jerry cartoons? Never mind that Warner's advertizing print campaign proclaimed the set to be uncut, never mind that the shorts are not "remastered" in the common sense of the word (I know that "remastered" simply means creating a new master of something, so technically transferring a VHS to DVD counts as a remaster - I'm referring to the common public perception of serious restoration work being done).

Put simply, we have been screwed, shafted, ass-raped, buggered and gypped by a studio that many incorrectly believe to be the best DVD company out there. Not only have classic cartoons been defaced yet again, we the public have been lied to, and so has poor Jerry Beck, who was strung along with promises that Warner cared about its animation library and that the terrible situation would be rectified. Jerry now looks more than a little foolish for apologizing for Warner's misdemeanours for so long, and it is abundantly clear that he has been unwittingly used as a pawn in a sick little game.

So seriously, fuck you, Warner. Never again will I buy an animated DVD from you without first making sure that your crooks haven't toyed with it, and even then I'll think twice about handing over my money to a company that quite blatantly treats its customers and its wealth of historically important film like crap.

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Trial & Retribution Volumes 5-8
[Posted 12:11 PM GMT by Whiggles]

I've reviewed Contender Home Entertainment's R2 release of Trial & Retribution Volumes 5-8, containing the next four episodes of the grisly police drama.

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A History of Violence trailer
[Posted 09:19 AM GMT by Whiggles]

The Cannes Film Festival web site has put up a trailer for David Cronenberg's latest film, A History of Violence. The quality isn't very good, and it has burned-in French subtitles, but the film itself looks pretty interesting, if a complete change of direction for Cronenberg.

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Don't Torture a Duckling
[Posted 01:06 PM GMT by Whiggles]

A Lucio Fulci film with a solid plot and not much gore? Whatever next? I've reviewed Don't Torture a Duckling, released on a bare-bones but serviceable R0 US DVD by Anchor Bay.

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HD unification talks halted
[Posted 10:22 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Source: 10K Bullets Forum

Talks in Japan aimed at unifying the two leading high-definition formats broke down early Monday without reaching a solution, according to sources who tracked the discussions closely from the U.S.

Although new talks could still be scheduled, sources in both the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD camps said they now see little choice but to proceed on the assumption that a compromise will not be worked out.

Aw, crap!

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CPU fan update
[Posted 05:27 PM GMT by Whiggles]

A round of Guild Wars did kick my CPU's fan into noisy mode, but it did it much more gradually and never quite hit the levels it had been reaching before. It also calmed down a lot quicker - in around 5 minutes it had fallen from 3400 to 2700 RPM. I can live with this, I guess. At its most intensive it probably sounds about as loud as my old system (the one upstairs) does in idle mode.

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Fan noise problems... fixed?
[Posted 01:29 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Over the last couple of days, I've been getting increasingly annoyed about the amount of noise my CPU fan has been making. The clincher came this morning when, after watching a 22-minute AVI of an episode of The Simpsons (and not a particularly good one at that), the fan shot up to 3800 RPM and sounds like Concorde taking off. The noise lasted for a good 30-40 minutes, at which point it had become pretty unbearable. Given that I didn't really like the idea of having to put up with this noise every time I watched a simple video file, I began to look into solutions for replacing the fan. None of them looked particularly appetizing, since due to the Socket 775 Pentium 4's "ingenious" toolless design, many of them would require me to lift the entire motherboard off the case and fit a backplate, so in the meantime I decided to try and alleviate matters by separating the gap between my desk and Lyris' so I could push the case further under the table. This also led to a larger gap between Lyris' case and mine, allowing me to spread out the four "feet" on my case.

Whatever I did, this seems to have fixed the problem. After watching a 22-minute episode of The Simpsons (the same one, and still not very good), and participating in a good 40 minutes' worth of intense gaming in Unreal Tournament 2004 with all the details maxed out at 1600x1200x32 with 4-sample AA, the CPU fan never rose above 2700 RPM and the whole thing purred away quietly throughout. Of course, knowing my luck, everything will be back to noisy normality as soon as I next reboot my system, but for the time being I'm going to trust that this solution is a permanent one. It's odd, because my CPU and motherboard and still reporting around the same temperatures as they were before, only the CPU fan hasn't been driving itself anything like as hard. Oh well, as the old saying goes, don't look a gift horse in the mouth...

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Naked Lunch
[Posted 10:23 PM GMT by Whiggles]

I've reviewed Criterion's magnificent 2-disc release of David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch right here at Whiggles.com.

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Hello hello hello!
[Posted 03:41 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Right now I'm currently in the grip of what I can only assume to be food poisoning, so forgive me if I'm brief. Last night I hauled my old computer upstairs, hooked it up and did a bare-bones installation on it. Without having to worry about such trivialities as network drivers, sound cards or virus scanners, it runs like a Ferrari.

New system: as good as I could have hoped, except for one slight problem - the noise of the CPU fan. When the system is idle or performing such non-strenuous tasks as playing DVDs or browsing the web, the whole thing is very quiet, easily the quietest system I've ever owned, but as soon as I start doing something CPU-intensive, like playing a game or even installing a large amount of data, the CPU heats up and the fan begins spinning much faster. After about 20-30 minutes in a graphically intensive game like Guild Wars (which I'm loving, by the way, even if it is flawed in some ways - expect a detailed overview soon), the thing is screaming like a banshee, and takes a good 10 minutes to return to normal after I stop playing. Whether or not I'll get used to it is anyone's guess. It's certainly not a huge problem, and I think the ability to play games like Unreal Tournament 2004, Guild Wars and World of Warcraft at 60+ fps with all the details maxed out and anti-aliasing at 4x outweighs the extra sound it produces, but I'm considering modding it as instructed by Bjoern Roy in his Silent mod for stock S775 P4 cooler article.

This afternoon, I also stuck in my old Sound Blaster Audigy, after trying repeatedly trying (and failing) to get games to work properly on the built-in C-Media chip. Everything sounded great (apart from the MIDI, it blew donkey testicles), but for some reason in a number of games sound effects that were meant to come out of the centre channel were missing. I tried everything I could think of, even hooking the thing up to my speakers via analogue 4-point (quadrophonic) sound, and couldn't solve the problem. Eventually I decided that there's no point in fixing what ain't broke, so out came the screwdriver and in went the Audigy. It's actually a great card, now that I think about it, and the C-Media chip had few benefits over it, although being able to encode to Dolby 5.1 on the fly was an obvious plus.

Aimee Mann's latest album, The Forgotten Arm, arrived this morning, straight from the United States, with bonus oversized liner notes. These notes, measuring 24cm x 24cm, are essentially just a reproduction of the credits/lyrics booklet in the case, but it's a nice touch nonetheless.

Finally, I received a review copy of Wong Kar Wai's 2046 yesterday, a film I'd wanted to catch at the cinema but hadn't got around to seeing. I'll be watching (and reviewing) it just as soon as I feel a bit better. Right now, I just don't think I'd be able to concentrate on the subtitles.

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How the hell are ya?
[Posted 03:20 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Well, how's it hanging? I've been quite busy these last few hours, installing crap of various sorts and twiddling my thumbs while I waited for around 70 GB of data to be transferred over the network from my old system to my new one. So far, I've spent most of today sorting my data into sensible, organized, manageable folders - in many cases, there's material here going back a good 10 years, that has never before been sorted. It's been quite a task, but it's almost done. Hopefully, once I'm through with the managerial tasks, I can get down to doing what my new computer is good for: playing fancy games.

One of these fancy games is Guild Wars, which arrived this morning. I've installed it and gone for a runaround my first character, and first impressions are quite positive. In many ways it's very similar to World of Warcraft (perhaps unsurprising, given that developer ArenaNet's founders, Mike O'Brien, Jeff Strain and Patrick Wyatt, were all involved in high-up positions on World of Warcraft before they left Blizzard), but so far I think the combat system in this game is vastly superior. Very nice graphics too, and my machine is hardly breaking a sweat. That, as they say, is what you pay for.

Lucio Fulci's celebrated Seven Notes in Black (R0 USA) also arrived today. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

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Pocahontas
[Posted 12:57 PM GMT by Whiggles]

One of Disney's weakest efforts or a misunderstood gem? I've reviewed the recent R1 10th Anniversary Edition of Pocahontas, which boasts a new digital transfer and a new extended scene.

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Hi ho silver, away!
[Posted 08:42 PM GMT by Whiggles]

I have four golden words for you: All Systems Are Go! Sorry I can't elaborate at the moment, I have a lot of installation to do, and I still need to hook my old machine up on the network and copy over 70 gigabytes of MP3s, screen captures, game saves, downloads and documents. Adios, amigos, but not for long!

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Counting down to blast-off
[Posted 12:46 PM GMT by Whiggles]

My hard drive arrived this morning. I should definitely be up and running later tonight.

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A Lizard in a Woman's Skin
[Posted 12:44 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Lucio Fulci's second foray into giallo territory and a wonderfully twisted exercise in psychedelic terror, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin is given an disappointingly shoddy (but perhaps unavoidable) presentation by Shriek Show on this R1 2-disc DVD. Full review here.

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Upgrade a-go-go
[Posted 10:33 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Went out for lunch today with some friends from university. Had fun, dampened slightly by my raging cold. Got back in time to take a phone call from Chillblast. Apparently Barclaycard declined the transaction to my credit card for my new hard drive, I'm assuming because I went over my credit for this month. No problem, I gave them the details of my Debit card over the phone, and ten minutes later I got an email to say that my hard drive had been dispatched and that I can expect it tomorrow. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: these people provide a fantastic service. The customer support is some of the best I have experienced and is a real breath of fresh air having become accustomed to the scummy behaviour of the cowboys at Overclockers UK (remember the monitor malcontent I was experiencing at around this time last year?). Chillblast has friendly staff, a wide range of products, prompt delivery times, excellent packaging... all you could ask for.

Also fitted my RAM tonight, connected the machine up to a monitor and keyboard, pressed the Power On button, and...

And...

And...

And...

And...

And...

And...

And...

And...

And...

It works! It's a flying success! Everything functions as it's supposed to! Who would have thought? The whole installation process was so complex I was convinced something would go wrong, but no, no cloud of blue smoke, no smouldering components, just the sound of a jumbo jet taking off as the fan on my video card kicks in, which lasts for about a second. Obviously, without a hard drive it's not much use, but it's looking increasingly like I'll be good to go by tomorrow evening. Which is a good thing too, as I'm expecting Guild Wars to arrive tomorrow, and I'd like to have a swish new game to play on my swish new computer.

Keep it real, homies!

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Upgrade
[Posted 10:56 AM GMT by Whiggles]

My memory has just arrived. True to their word, Chillbast received it yesterday and immediately sent it out for free via Special Delivery. Superb service! Now all I need is my hard drive and I'll be ready to go.

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Slipstream Windows XP SP2
[Posted 10:24 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Tom's Hardware has an excellent article about the process of "slipstreaming" Windows XP and Service Pack 2, so you can perform a fresh install of both at once from a single CD, using a single installation process: great for cutting down on the time it takes to get Windows up and running. I'll definitely be using this method when the time comes to start setting up my new system.

Installing or reinstalling WindowsXP typically requires the additional task of installing Service Pack 2 separately. After installing WindowsXP, users must then go through the tedious process of installing Service Pack 2 updates and drivers. However, Microsoft offers an alternative. Using a process called slipstreaming, users can burn CDs that combine a WindowsXP installation CD and Service Pack 2. This makes the whole Windows installation run considerably faster.

Administrators in larger companies can especially benefit from this method. But even private users can make their lives easier, especially if they have to reinstall their systems more frequently because of extensive hardware changes (modders, for example).

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Saw
[Posted 10:37 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Watched it today. Totally disappointing. People kept comparing it with Argento's work and saying it was the best horror film in years, and all I get is a badly acted, badly shot and extremely badly edited affair that makes even Argento's weakest films look like sheer masterpieces. Argento my ass - MTV is more like it.

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Upgrade fun
[Posted 10:15 PM GMT by Whiggles]

The upgrade continues at a great pace. I think we've basically got as far as we can now - I need to wait for the RAM and hard drive to arrive before proceeding any further. Given that I'll essentially have two complete systems lying about, I've decided that, rather than wrangle with shifting multiple hard drives in and out, I'll just connect the two machines together over the network and transfer the data that way: no doubt slower, but less hassle overall. I must say, though, that reading some of the accounts of setting up SATA devices (specifically, getting the Windows installer to recognize them) are a bit hair-raising. Here's hoping for plain sailing, but I've had enough experience with computers now to know that the words "plain sailing" and "computer" rarely go together.

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Ugh...
[Posted 10:12 PM GMT by Whiggles]

I guess I should thank the Great Giver of Colds that I didn't get it in the middle of my exams, but it's really not all that fun to kick off my first week of freedom with the worst sore throat/blocked nose combo I've had in months. This is actually the first cold I've had all year, which is actually pretty good going considering I usually pick up every minor infection going. Personally, I put my relative lack of ailments this year down to my new healthy(ish) lifestyle, which has led to me losing over a stone (14 pounds, or 6 kilos) in less than six weeks. Here's hoping I shake this one off quickly as I really don't feel good at all right now.

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A treatise on "cunt"
[Posted 10:40 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Jago Turner has written an excellent treatise on the use of "cunt", that most heavenly of words, at Dark Discussion. Go on, don't be such a big vulva, check it out!

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The upgrade hits a snag
[Posted 10:25 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Did some more work on the big upgrade last night: fitted the power supply, CPU, heatsink and video card, and began doing some of the cabling... but have now hit a pretty major snag: this motherboard only has a single IDE connector. As those of you who are computer literate will know, each IDE connector can run two devices: a master and a slave. My current setup has four devices: two hard drives, a DVD-ROM drive and a DVD writer. However, a single IDE channel will only let me use two. Uh-oh.

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming. I've changed every single internal component in the system except the disk drives, and given that there has been a move from AGP to PCI-E for video cards, and a move from 184-pin RAM to 240-pin RAM, I should have guessed that the data storage formats would be changing too. The new buzzword at the moment is Serial ATA, a new hard drive system... and this new motherboard sure ain't short of Serial ATA connectors! In fact, it comes with 10 cables. Luckily, one will suffice.

Rather than pussyfoot around, I've bitten the bullet and ordered myself a SATA hard drive: a 400 GB Hitachi Deskstar 7K400, from Chillblast, because their service has been so good so far. I am, of course, going to have to go through a fresh install of Windows, in addition to wrangling with the usual problem of having to shift a massive amount of data of the old hard drives (which will probably involve me connecting them up one at a time and shunting the crap over), but I'm glad I caught this little snag before I was ready to get up and running. All being well, this should be a relatively painless move and will set me up for the future.

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Move over, World of Warcraft - it's Guild Wars time
[Posted 11:19 AM GMT by Whiggles]

It looks like my resubscription to World of Warcraft may prove to be short-lived, as I've just discovered what looks like an even better online RPG, and better yet, there's no monthly fee! That's right, for a one-off payment (for the game itself, £17.99 at Play.com), you can get hundreds of hours of RPG fun in yet another great-looking game from former Blizzard top brass. You can find out more about the game at the Guild Wars web site, or read an extremely positive review at Gamespot. I've ordered my copy, which will hopefully arrive in time for me to take full advantage of it with my new computer.

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It's great to be back!
[Posted 11:27 PM GMT by Whiggles]

This is what I've missed! My writer's block seems to have completely gone and I spent much of today writing reviews. I finished up A Lizard in a Woman's Skin and started on Pocahontas, both for DVD Times. I also need to finish Naked Lunch and start on The Dreamers, since I plan on publishing both on Whiggles.com and also promised Michael at 10K Bullets I would have them ready ASAP so he could host copies on his reviews site.

Also, the building of my new computer began this afternoon, with my dad's help (actually, he's ending up doing most of the work, which suits me just fine, as I'm not at all confident about jumpers, motherboard mounting, etc.). We didn't get far - actually, we only got the board mounted, but I'm hoping everything will be ready to go by the time my RAM arrives early next week. I'm also hoping to avoid the trials of a reinstall of Windows. Since ASUS and Intel tend to be reasonably safe with regard to changing major components, I think everything will be fine, but I wonder if the move from AGP to PCI-E architecture will present any problems.

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A picture of my goodies
[Posted 02:02 PM GMT by Whiggles]

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Pocahontas
[Posted 11:49 AM GMT by Whiggles]

A review copy of the 10th anniversary edition of Pocahontas (R1 USA) arrived this morning. Disney's worst film and I will soon be reviewing it! What fun!

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Disney cashes in
[Posted 11:01 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Source: DVD Times

Ever on the look-out for an opportunity to make a quick buck, the money-grubbers at Disney have hit on yet another brilliant scheme: put Pixar's Toy Story out of print and announce a brand-new "10th Anniversary Edition" a few months later. Will I buy this, or won't I? I'm not sure. It looks as if the majority of the extras are just carried over from the Ultimate Toy Box. Still, the prospect of a new transfer and documentary makes it tempting.

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Profondo Rosso in high definition
[Posted 10:41 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Source: Mobius

It looks as if Medusa have released a special 2-disc edition of Dario Argento's Profondo Rosso, the first disc containing the standard edition of the film and the second featuring a high definition (1440x816) Windows Media 9 version. A word of warning, however: I own the original Profondo Rosso DVD from Medusa, and while they have cut in Italian credits at the beginning and end (complete with the requisite moving image of David Hemmings during the closing credits), the rest of the transfer seems to have been taken from the Anchor Bay release and as a result is a standards conversion without much definition. The fact that the cover and distributor are the same for this WM9 HD version makes me a little suspicious as to whether there will be any gains in resolution or overall quality. Still, I wish I'd known about this release before I bought the standard edition.

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I'm free! I've escaped!
[Posted 10:37 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Good heavens! My last exam went by this afternoon with flying colours. It was probably the easiest exam I've had since school, and for once I didn't spend the last 15 minutes twiddling my thumbs. I actually wrote a good five pages on each of my two questions, which, as luck would have it, were exactly the ones I was hoping would come up. Touch wood, I'll have done well in this one, which should help make up for some of my weaker questions in other papers.

When I got home, I found that most of my upgrade parts had arrived. The memory itself is out of stock, but Chillblast are expecting it on Monday and will then deliver it to me by First Class post, free of charge. That's service! I've decided not to start setting it up until the memory arrives (a computer without memory is not much use, after all), but already I can see that the goods looks excellent. The case is of a superb build quality, all the motherboard components are present, etc. etc. The timing has been excellent, I must say.

Oh, and last night I reactivated my World of Warcraft account. It is a damn fun game, and in the short time I've been playing it I haven't suffered any disconnects, lag spikes or bugs. Again, touch wood, it looks like things have improved since I last dipped my toe in the festering pond that is Blizzard Entertainment's online server system. (Of course, the upgrade to 1 Mbit/sec cable Internet might have something to do with it.)

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Vampire Howard stands down
[Posted 12:41 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Source: BBC News

Why break the habit of a lifetime? This has become the usual pattern for Conservative leaders whenever they lose an election: resign. John Major, William Hague, the bald man whose name no-one remembers, and now Vampire Howard. Who will be next?

This election is shaping up to be not such a disappointment after all.

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Come on, surely it's not just me...
[Posted 11:00 AM GMT by Whiggles]

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Blair gets third term
[Posted 10:22 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Source: BBC News

Mr Blair pledged to respond "sensibly and wisely" to the result, which the BBC predicts will see his majority cut from 167 in 2001 to 66.

The Conservatives have mounted a strong challenge but their overall share of the vote will be similar to 2001.

The Lib Dems have made big inroads into Labour majorities and look set to end up with an estimated 60 seats.

Is anyone really surprised? I suppose it's better than getting Vampire Howard, but it says something about the apathy of the British public that Liar Blair's involvement in the Iraq war was so hated, and yet he was still re-elected, albeit by a much depleted majority. I suppose at least the Liberal Democrats made a few gains, including my own constituency, Dumbartonshire East, so I guess I can say my vote counted for something.

Why won't you people wake up and smell the coffee? If you don't like Blair, and you like Kennedy (as the polls suggest), you should vote for Kennedy, not Blair! It's not exactly rocket science. I suspect that if every voter angry about the war had voted for Kennedy (the only one of the three main party leaders who opposed the war from the outset), Blair would have been out on his ass and Kennedy would have been inside Number 10 this morning (or whenever the change-over would have taken place). As for Howard, he is beneath contempt. The slimy bastard fully backed Blair on the war and now has the audacity to attack him for "taking the country to war". He's as bad as John Kerry. Scratch that, he's worse. While Howard looks, sounds and acts like Count Dracula, Kerry just did a passable and altogether inoffensive imitation of a plank of wood.

Ah well, news that Blair will probably step down before his third term ends makes this a little easier to bear, I suppose.

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Flagship Studios announce Hellgate: London
[Posted 10:17 AM GMT by Whiggles]

Flagship Studios, the company founded by the Blizzard North defectors, including virtually everyone who did anything important on Diablo and/or Diablo II, have finally revealed details on their first game, Hellgate: London. Essentially, this game takes the Diablo formula and puts it in a first person perspective, set in London 25 years into the future, when demons have overrun the city. It looks very interesting, and it certainly sounds as if the team are planning on shaking up the formula a bit. For instance, unlike most games using a first person shooter perspective, aiming will not be a primary concern: essentially, it sounds as if this will play exactly like Diablo, only from a different perspective, which can only be a good thing.

You can read an interview with senior designer Erich Schaefer and watch a video interview with producer Bill Roper at at Gamespot.

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Hannibal
[Posted 12:23 AM GMT by Whiggles]

To coincide with the UK theatrical release of Ridley Scott's latest film, Kingdom of Heaven, I've reviewed the R2/4 UK release of Hannibal, in this reviewer's opinion some of the director's best work to date. Let the controversy commence!

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Elephants
[Posted 04:34 PM GMT by Whiggles]

It's official: elephants are the coolest animals on the planet.

(Can you tell I have more time on my hands now? Last exam tomorrow and I'm not exactly breaking a sweat about it.)

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Family Guy... bad?
[Posted 12:13 PM GMT by Whiggles]

I quite like Family Guy, at least in small doses. However, there are a number of problems with the show, and this blog post sums up a number of them very eloquently. I'm less concerned about the perceived theft of ideas from other shows (that's part of life), but I do agree with a number of the points he raises, namely that it frequently uses references to 80s pop culture as a substitute for actual jokes (i.e. you're expected to find the reference funny simply because it's a reference, rather than because there's something actually funny about it). An interesting read, although it's been doing the rounds for a while now so you may have seen it already.

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Order shipped!
[Posted 12:09 PM GMT by Whiggles]

My upgrade has been shipped! All being well I'll have it by the beginning of next week.

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I hate...
[Posted 10:37 AM GMT by Whiggles]

I've updated the I Hate... section with details on why I hate Invader Zim. (Sorry, Lyris, on this one I'm afraid we'll have to disagree.)

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Today's the day you have to vote
[Posted 09:51 AM GMT by Whiggles]

I've already cast my vote via the post, but I suspect the vast majority will be turning up in person to cast their ballot. Please make the effort - it's cliché, I know, but I feel that if you don't bother to vote, you don't have any right to make criticisms of the government in power. I've given up any hope of the Liberal Democrats getting into power this year, but at least they can hopefully secure a few more seats in parliament. I'm resigned to the fact that Liar Blair and his pirates will get another four years, but I suppose it's preferable to Vampire Howard and his bilge rats. What I don't understand is that, in virtually every poll, Charles Kennedy and his Liberal Democrats outstrip the other two major parties in terms of trustworthiness, quality of election campaign, etc., and yet still the majority don't seem to want to vote for them. Idiots, I tell you, idiots!

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Presto changeo! Whiggles.tk becomes Whiggles.com!
[Posted 12:19 PM GMT by Whiggles]

This morning, upon typing "http://www.whiggles.tk" into the search bar, I was confronted with an appalling sight: a full page banner for "I Love Online Dating" and a tiny little "continue to Whiggles.tk" link at the top of the screen. I can't have that. My site is so important and so wonderful that people should be able to reach it immediately. What was I to do?

I decided to actually pay for a domain name, that's what. Only thing is, I thought that if I was going to fork over cash for it, I might as well do it in style, so I got myself a shiny new .com domain name for a little over £14. Not bad, though I say it myself.

The bottom line is that this site is now Whiggles.com, and I would advise you to use it in future, rather than the banner-ridden Whiggles.tk or the overly long Whiggles.Landofwhimsy.com. All the individual page urls will remain intact, since this is essentially only a redirect service, but now the site will be snazzier and more wonderful than ever by virtue of its name. Hooray!

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Upgrade ordered
[Posted 11:11 PM GMT by Whiggles]

I ordered my upgrade tonight:

- Intel Pentium Overclocking Bundle (Asus P5AD2 Premium Motherboard; Intel 550 3.4GHz CPU; 1024MB OCZ PC-4200 EL DDR RAM)
- Sapphire Radeon X850XT PCI Express
- Lian Li PC-6070B Silent Black Aluminium Case
- Antec NeoPower 480W PSU

Also ordered a cheapo Sony 16x DVD-ROM drive for the upstairs box.

Well, that's me set myself back £1,172.03, including a very reasonable £7.50 for shipping the whole shebang to me. My mum said she'd pay a "contribution" as part of my birthday, and I plan on pillaging the Loony Grandmothers' Treasure Trove. All in all, this will hopefully not cost me a huge amount of my own, hard-earned cash, although I am very much aware that I will eventually be expected to pay back my student loan. Fun times, fun times.

I'm planning on building my new system myself. In the past, I've always got my dad to do it, but I've come to the conclusion that I really should learn to do this sort of thing myself. I mean, how hard can it be? Having said that, I'm certainly going to have him double-check everything in case I wire something wrong and run the risk of frying the whole thing. Yes, buying a whole computer would be much more straightforward (and probably somewhat cheaper too), but that way I certainly wouldn't get the combination I wanted.

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Six down, one to go
[Posted 11:04 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Had my Phonetics II exam today, and it went surprisingly well. Not great, admittedly, but sufficiently better than I had been anticipating. Now, I just have two and a half days left to muck up Literary and Linguistic Computing, which should be pretty straightforward given that (a) I only have to do two questions and (b) the subject is a walkover.

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Phonetics II
[Posted 09:29 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Phonetics II tomorrow, and boy am I not looking forward to it. Four questions in three hours, and they tend to be the toughest, most obscure questions of the lot. I've done a hell of a lot of work for this paper - more than any other subject - and I just hope it pays off.

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Blu-ray and HD-DVD join forces
[Posted 06:06 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Source: IGN

According to a report by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the next-generation format war may be over before it ever starts. The Japanese newspaper on Thursday published with news that Sony and Toshiba are expected to make an announcement later this month that they have abandoned the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats respectively and are working on a new medium that will bring together both standards...

Sony and Toshiba have remained in negotiations on the subject for weeks, with key company executives from each camp dropping hints that a unified standard would be optimal.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports that, having reached an agreement that a new, unified standard would be the best thing for the industry, Sony and Toshiba are now in the process of designing the new standard, which seeks to take the strengths from each medium and combine them.

Sony has reportedly suggested using Blu-ray's disc structure and HD-DVD's software technology while Toshiba has suggested keeping HD-DVD's disc structure and applying Sony's multi-layer data-recording technology...

The article in question is slightly confusing, but it sounds as if the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats will still exist, except that a third system will emerge capable of playing both formats.

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Howl's Moving Castle trailer released
[Posted 10:34 PM GMT by Whiggles]

http://bvbp-qt.vitalstream.com/HowlsMovingCastle/Howls_Trailer1_Domestic41905_3000.mov

Looks like another winner from Miyazaki.

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Movie funnies
[Posted 08:16 PM GMT by Whiggles]

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring had its UK terrestrial TV premiere last night. We sort of tuned in and out occasionally (we were busy watching Celebrity Fatties and I Have a Dirty House on that paragon of quality, ITV2), and it's amazing just how ridiculous the whole affair is. If I actually sit down and watch one of these films from beginning to end, I can just about take it seriously, but if I see a couple of scenes out of context, I find myself struggling to prevent myself from laughing uproariously. I seriously hope another director tackles this story some time soon and actually does it justice, because Peter Jackson's effort, to me, feels like an uneasy marriage between his Bad Taste-era campness (and don't think for a minute that I'm knocking Bad Taste) and pompous Hollywood self-importance. Elements of these films are perfectly good on their own (the score is definitely Howard Shore's best work to date, and the visual effects are at times fairly impressive), but the overall result is just too whimsical and mawkish.

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The last gasp
[Posted 08:01 PM GMT by Whiggles]

Well, today is the first day of a brand new month, and tomorrow is the last week of the dreaded crap known as Finals. I can't wait to get them over with, but they've been preying on my mind for so long that I honestly have no idea how I'll adapt to not having to do them. Once they're out of the way, I really need to get back into writing reviews and watching movies. I wrote a review of Hannibal for DVD Times last week, and it's currently sitting in the scheduler, but it was a bit like pulling teeth given that I've pretty much lost all motivation to write anything. I'm hoping that will pass once the exams are done and dusted. I'm also acutely aware that I have three DVDs from Blockbuster sitting in a pile (The Others, Saw and Black Christmas) that I'm technically paying for as we speak, given that my free first month subscription has now run out. Feels a bit annoying to know that I'm forking out cash for discs that are just lying around gathering dust.

My elderly granny took a tumble at 4 a.m. last night and phoned my parents for help. Apparently she got up to get an asparin and tripped on her way back to bed. Tonight, over dinner, my dad said to her "You mean our entire 24 hours has been ruined over an asparin?" He clearly sees nothing wrong with saying something like that. Yessir, he truly can be a cunt at times.

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