Random Hoo Haasthe blog with the guff

Holding out for a hero

Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 11:26 pm Comments (4)

It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about Metal Slug, hasn’t it?
A couple of days ago a Korean fellow emailed me with some pretty juicy material found in Metal Slug 5 – we’re talking unused areas, blocked-off alternate paths and totally unique backgrounds!

Seriously, check this out. Those cogs apparently exist at the bottom of the Mission 5 fight against the elephant tower machines, would you believe it? And if anyone has ever survived my terribly written coverage of the early video previews of the game, you might recognise that screen on the right as appearing in one of the videos as an intro to one of the areas – but in-game you start just past it. It’s still there, it’s just off-screen, evidently!
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Bomb on board

Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 12:34 am Comments (4)

We’ve got ourselves an update on the Bomberman shrine, and a new General Writing. Don’t forget to check the title tags!

Watched Flightplan a couple of days ago. It’s a bit like two films wedged together – one is an atmospheric, almost psychological thriller about a crazy lady on a plane who claims to be missing a child, but there’s a bunch of evidence that she never had a child on the flight at all – and the last half hour is a very cookie-cutter-if-ridiculous “single mom thwarts impractical terrorist threat” plot. I’d try and wrap my head around how the bad guy actually organised his scheme or what he even wanted, for that matter, but it’s the sort of dumb thing that isn’t worth wasting time thinking about.
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Housewife

Friday, January 20, 2012 at 12:03 am Comments (3)

Watched Monster House. Well, uh, it was nice to finally watch it, but it did nothing for me. Mind you, the fact one of the writers apologised for it might have skewed my first impression.

There’s a grumpy old dude who don’t like kids! One kid, DJ, spies on the house and notices that toys lost on the lawn are never seen again. After accidentally giving the old man a heart attack, he notices weird, freaky stuff going on, including people going missing. He and his friends investigate.
If that doesn’t sound interesting, about an hour in we discover that the house is actually an angry woman’s soul. And the house has got, like, a digestive system. Does that sound cool? To me, it’s cool! It’s a pity we only learn it an hour into the film.
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Soupy twist

Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 11:37 pm Comments (1)

I spent New Years Eve watching the 2009 Sherlock Holmes with the folks, and just so happened to get invited to see the sequel with my uncle on New Years Day. I can’t really say much, it’s about what you’d expect if you saw the first one – the same kind of romping around, the same kind of banter. Not bad, not fantastic, just on par with the first one. If you didn’t like the first one, it won’t change your mind.

I was looking forward to seeing Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes, but I was a bit disappointed – partly because Mycroft doesn’t have much screen time and doesn’t actually do much (true to the character, I suppose), and partly because, well, it’s hard to actually see Stephen Fry as a character. I can suspend my disbelief for everyone else – Robert Downey Jr. is Sherlock Holmes! Jude Law is Dr. Watson! Stephen Fry is… Stephen Fry wearing a hat, or Stephen Fry in period dress or something.
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Snow him so well

Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 2:21 pm Comments (1)

So, Christmas has come and gone, December’s coming to a close, the new year’s approaching, and I’ve been so much of a self-absorbed shithead that I’ve barely even noticed. Story of my life! In my defence, Jingle All The Way was not shown once on television, so what’s the point of caring? Instead they showed things like My Neighbour Totoro. Are they actually trying to bring some class to the festive season? Get outta town!

The annual get-together was pretty bog-standard, and I got two calendars and a box of Rolo. Hell yeah.
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Tumbling slowly

Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 2:04 pm Comments Off on Tumbling slowly

There’s an update to the Games I Own section, and the links page has got some new links and a lot less words. I figure there’s gotta be one page on the site where I’m not babbling multiple paragraphs about nonsense.

Vertical

Thursday, December 15, 2011 at 9:49 pm Comments Off on Vertical

I watched Vertigo yesterday. I won’t deny it’s one of those classic movies that, although great to finally see, didn’t offer many surprises since it’s been parodied so many times. Heck, the Sledge Hammer! episode “Vertical” basically compresses the two hour-long movie into 22 minutes without too many omissions, if you don’t mind it being totally out-of-character and losing out on Hitchcock’s great visuals.

The visuals were the true treat for watching the film – it’s practically a glamour video for 1950s San Francisco! So many beautiful landscapes combined with terrific frame work – it’s a great story and all, but goddamn, those sights! And everyone had such terrific eyebrows. I’d dare say it’s a very sexy film for people who like landscapes and eyebrows. I can’t be the only one, can I?
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Snappy, happy monkey

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 8:16 pm Comments Off on Snappy, happy monkey

I can owe a number of trivial audio-related parts of my life to the cassettes my dad would play while driving me to primary school years and years ago. Most importantly, it introduced me to The Goon Show, which probably led into my interest in radio production and absurdist humour. It introduced me to Flanders & Swann, I heard the story of The Hobbit without ever touching the original novel, and I was probably subjected to the theme from The Adventures of Robin Hood more times than any child should be.

It also meant I got to listen to Little Red Monkey by Joy Nichols, Dick Bentley and Jimmy Edwards a bunch of times. For whatever reason, the song freaked me out when I was a kid.
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Don’t look a gift mule in the mouth

Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 1:18 pm Comments (2)

I was going to say that I wouldn’t trust an equine wearing tights… but then I realised that was just the tint of its wings.
I wouldn’t trust one wearing wings, either.

Today’s observation: Replacing all usages of the word “epic” with “big ol'” makes it infinitely more charming. Kirby’s Big Ol’ Yarn. Big Ol’ Mickey. Big Ol’ Comics. Big ol’ poetry. Big Ol’ of Gilgamesh.

Les Gees!

Friday, December 2, 2011 at 2:12 pm Comments (4)

I watched The Iron Giant last night. I’m in one of those miserable curmudgeon-y moods where I’m totally uninspired and a colossal bore and curse arbitrarily to myself (because that’s what bummed people do!), and as such I’m really disappointed that I don’t even have much to say about it. But I really quite enjoyed it! The visual style was really slick and colourful and just gosh darn swell, and for a simple story, it carries itself pretty well. I might even have to admit it tugged on my heart strings a little. I can definitely see what all the fuss is about. Bonus points for John Mahoney voicing the army general, because I just love the dude’s voice.

So there’s this cartoon that I’ve caught more episodes of than I’d liked to; it’s not dreadful or anything (I have to appreciate the effort!), but something about it just plain irks me, y’know. It’s called The Gees.
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