An inspiration to us all!
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Monday, 17 March 2008
Batman: The Dark Knight trailer!
I don't have much to say about the new trailer for The Dark Knight.
It looks pretty cool and I look forward to seeing the movie on DVD at some point!
I am not a huge comic geek, so I am not going to go in to anymore depth than that!
The thing that did strike me though was about the "Bat Bike" seen in the trailer!
That really should have been how they did the Lawmaster bikes in the Judge Dredd film, instead of those awful flying things! (I know the Judge Dredd movie has pretty much been universally condemned, but I think it is good comic-book fun, even though Stallone massacred the lead role!)
The Bat bike at least looked like a Lawmaster, with it's fat wheels etc.
http://www.sfdb.org.uk/viewer.php?view=1150
But then again, perhaps there are worse things than the movie Lawmasters......
Thursday, 13 March 2008
BBC4's Worlds of Fantasy
I managed to miss the first two episodes of this documentary (although I still have the first one on tape and will watch it at some point).
Anyway, I managed to catch last nights episode. It was really quite interesting, looking at the background and reasons for the rise in popularity of fantasy fiction.
It was very much a British perspective with Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman (being interviewed in a church - that just struck me as interesting) and China Mieville.
The only non-British voice was Guillermo del Toro, which I thought was an interesting choice.
Clearly the series was trying to be "high brow", seeing Pratchett as the satirist of the age!
The show was a bit to "artsy" for it's own good, almost looking down it's nose at the genre as an art-form, but using it as an escape from or reflection of modern life!
At least it tried to deal with the subject in a respectable non-sneering manner.
I dread to think how a similar show would deal with science fiction!
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Flock Browser
I just discovered Flock, another of the Mozilla based browser.
I have been using Netscape Navigator (and Firefox), but now that NN is no longer being supported I have decided to give Flock a try.
I really like the integration with social networking sites like Facebook, Blogger and Twitter. Also the integration with Yahoo mail and Gmail is very useful.
I think this could become my favourite browser!
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Monday, 10 March 2008
Dial P For Pulp! Show 6 is finally available...
Two weeks late but definitely not pod-faded!!!
This is the link to the Libsyn page:-
This is the direct download link:-
http://media.libsyn.com/media/dpfp/dialpforpulp-006-Mar08.mp3
My desktop PC lives... it was only down for the best part of a week!
One of the tech guys at work ran a nifty piece of software through my PC that managed to reset the password on my corrupted Admin profile.
Basically I managed to set up a couple of new admin profiles (redundancy and all that) and retrieve all my files from the corrupted one.
I have still lost some emails, but I will now go over to purely online services (I already have Yahoo and Google email).
I am also sourcing a second external drive that I will use exclusively for backing up both my desktop PC and my laptop.
Friday, 7 March 2008
Torchwood: Something Borrowed
I must say that I enjoyed this episode more than I have enjoyed any of the others in this series so far!
A great semi-humorous plot, some nasty shape changing monsters and Nerys Hughes from The Liverbirds, as you have never seen her before!
Lets hope the series maintains this level for the rest of the run!
Reiner Knizia's Samurai!
At our regular Wednesday evening gaming session the other night we dug out Reiner Knizia's Samurai board game and between 8.30pm and 11.30pm managed to get in 4 games!
It is a really good tactical game that seems to get more complex as you play it! The different strategies you can use to collect the winning pieces just seem to always be one step ahead of you.
Great game, well worth a try, and I keep meaning to buy my own copy (but when one of the regular group members owns it is it worth duplicating).
(Image "borrowed" from BoardGameGeek.com)
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Interesting Pulp Style Model!
I have just seen this photo of a kit-bashed model, over at the Dark Roasted Blend blog!
Very alternate WWII looking, completely impractical, but great pulp fun all the same!
The sort of thing that would turn up in a Sky Captain, sequel!
Very alternate WWII looking, completely impractical, but great pulp fun all the same!
The sort of thing that would turn up in a Sky Captain, sequel!
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
The Paperback Fanatic Magazine
OK I am going to link to another review now!
I have just received issues 3,4,5 and 6 of The Paperback Fanatic from :- http://www.thepaperbackfanatic.com/index.htm
I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but I will do a full review in a forthcoming Dial P For Pulp! podcast.
In the mean time check out this review on the The Groovy Age of Horror blog
Her0press review of Slaine
Tim over at the Her0press blog has just posted a review of the first volume of the Slaine Book of Invasions graphic novel.
I couldn't have put it better myself, so give it a read!
http://her0press.blogspot.com/2008/
PC Troubles!
Monday evening my user profile on my desktop (VISTA) PC at home corrupted.
The main problem is, of course, this is the admin profile for my PC. I can still login and use the machine through my wife's profile, but that is only set up as a user account (no admin rights).
It seems like I am going to have to reinstall Windows to sort this out as I can't get any admin access to set up another Admin profile! I have managed to move most of the files into the public folder (using the Command line) but I'm still not sure if I will be able to get them off of the machine before I reinstall Windows.
Fortunately I mainly use that machine for internet access, so there was nothing to precious on it, just a few important emails that I may not be able to recover!
So here is a tip for anyone with a Vista PC, set up an extra Admin profile on your machine, just in case your main profile corrupts. Then, at least you will be able to access and work on rebuilding your PC!
Gary Gygax
Even though I have never really liked D&D I have been a keen role player for many years.
It is hard to imagine where the roleplaying hobby would be without Mr Gygax's work.
I don't think I have anything else to say, as there are many other people who can and will say more!
Thank-you Gary Gygax!
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Sci-Fi Channel Flash Gordon hits the UK!
I watched the first episode last night. I wont go into the gory details, as everyone else has already done that (Her0press), it was pretty weak.
I will will say that the whole attraction of Flash Gordon is the art deco styling and totally over-the-top characters. The producers of this series seem (from the first show) to have totally missed that!
There is a hint of "retro" about the Mongo styled technology, but other than that, it looked like Buffy meets Picket Fences!
I will probably watch a few more episodes, as there is little else on on a Monday night, but I think I will loose interest fairly quickly!
Monday, 3 March 2008
The Secret of Sinharat by Leigh Brackett
I have finally started reading The Secret of Sinharat by Leigh Brackett.
I am definitely enjoying it more than the other Planet Stories book that Paizo Publishing sent me (Elak of Atlantis by Henry Kuttner). There is nothing wrong with Kuttner's book, but I think I prefer the underdog/anti-hero rather than "privileged hero in disguise" style!
The full review will be forthcoming on the next Dial P for Pulp! podcast.
Very moving music!
I have just been working at my PC with Windows Media Player set to shuffle all the music on my PC.
Just now, up came Father's Wrong by The Men They Couldn't Hang. Now, I have played the album that this track came off of (probably) hundreds of times, but I don't think I have actually heard it in 4 or 5 years.
In the meantime I have become a father twice!
The theme of the song is child abuse, and it is a very moving and, frankly, disturbing song. However, even though I have heard the song many times before, I don't think it has ever had the impact on me that it has just had.
The difference the perspective of actually being a parent has on listening to Father's Wrong is immense!
I will find it hard to listen to it again in future.
Saturday, 1 March 2008
Welcome to my new blog!
I am going to use this blog as a place to chat about anything and everything that I find interesting.
It will feature material related to my podcast (Dial P For Pulp! - www.dialpforpulp.com), but I will also post about anything that comes to mind!
It will feature material related to my podcast (Dial P For Pulp! - www.dialpforpulp.com), but I will also post about anything that comes to mind!
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