Random Hoo Haasthe blog with the guff

“[…] classic sci-fi that will delight fans with its painstaking recreation of an alien world […]”

Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 8:03 pm Comments (3)

Lost and found? Yes, I’d like to know what happened to my weekend. October’s halfway over and nobody even told me? I am very unhappy with this, you guys!

Mind you, I’m totally to blame. I’ve been trying to find a means of updating the Games I Own section so it’ll be easier to manage and less of a jumbled mess, but so far that just results in a lot of unproductive wasted time. Could I ask for help here?

My brother picked it up on a whim from Play.com and has been raving about it, so I sat down and watched Hunter Prey – a budget sci-fi flick made for the Sci-Fi Channel. In summary, a bunch of aliens (which get whittled down to only one guy in under twenty minutes) are chasing the last human in the galaxy, who is not at all pleased that these genocidal aliens have blown up Earth. That’s basically it for the whole ninety minutes.

Really.
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“Look, girls! It’s our boy with no pants!”

Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 10:17 pm Comments (8)

What horrible events have prevented me from updating the blog in a whole week? Not much. I’ve just been a bit of vegetable, really. You’ve heard it a dozen times – I want to be productive, but being a lazy bastard is just that much more appealing. Didn’t I say I was going to have something made for the site this month? Ooer!

Back in September I was still determined to continue from where I left off from this little escapade and find a way to get GameCube functionality for the Wii Classic Controller. I’ve seen Classic Controllers online that have GameCube plugs online, but usually they’re on the dodgiest of dodgy sites and the ones on eBay aren’t exactly inspiring either. Of course, I’ve thrown cash towards all manner of shady places for poorly-thought-out needs, so I ordered one for a mere £4. And surprisingly, it actually arrived this time!
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Liam Neeson as the man with no skin

Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 11:04 pm Comments (1)

Watched Darkman. Scientist tries to create artificial skin, but it can last only one hundred minutes in daylight before it melts. He’s then blown up because of mobster activity (in the first of several possibly unintentionally hilarious moments – you could add the Goofy scream and you’d hardly tell it was a dramatic moment!) and becomes super strong, unable to feel pain and slightly crazy after his hospitalisation. Quite miffed by the mobsters that wrecked his lab, burned him alive and killed his Asian lab assistant (who I mention because he has the cutest cowlick ever), he uses his synthetic skin technology to impersonate the mobsters and wreck their organisation from the inside.
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Saurod, we hardly knew ye

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 3:34 pm Comments (1)

Was it really just eleven years ago that people thought the Dancing Baby was hip and fresh?

Ah, shareware CDs. My personal gateway into knowing what was popular a decade ago. This originated from PC Format magazine, issue 92 (February 1999!), and I had really high hopes for it. It had demos for Rogue Squadron 3D and Klingon Honor Guard! It contained a full accounts app that would, and I quote, “take control of [my] cash!” And if that wasn’t enough, the goddamned Dancing Baby was promoted as an exclusive feature. Delving into this would be like that stupid Pokémon CD I wrote about, except more ’90s flavoured!

The CD is disappointingly barebones, and it doesn’t recognise new versions of Quicktime. And – get this – you have to install the demos. What is this, the stone age? Can’t I just stream it off the CD? I know it’s impractical and not recommended for optimum performance, but I’m not made of installation time, man. I can’t waste my vital man hours waiting for a ten year old demo of King’s Quest 8: Mask of Eternity to transfer to my hard drive, even if it is a mere 48mb! Do you want me to die of old age?
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“And I kicked his ass so hard he saw the curvature of the Earth.”

Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 9:28 pm Comments (3)

I went to see Scott Pilgrim last night. While Resident Evil: Degeneration is a video game movie in atmosphere and overall vibe, Scott Pilgrim is effectively a video game movie in visuals, action, and general corniness. And it works so, so well.

… do I really need to explain the story? I mean, I’m pretty sure anyone even faintly familiar with it knows at least the basic gist. Love story, have to defeat girl’s evil ex-boyfriends, nerd references, yadda yadda yadda. You could try and say that it’s basically a love story of people fighting for the girl’s affection taken very, very literally, but I’ll be frank and say it’s a simple plot. The main attraction is simply the look and feel of the movie.

And my god, what a look and feel it is!
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“Anyone with hair that long doesn’t have a life worth living.”

Monday, September 20, 2010 at 11:48 pm Comments Off on “Anyone with hair that long doesn’t have a life worth living.”

Watched Resident Evil: Degeneration. It’s a film full of slow-motion bullet tracking, stuff blowing up, needlessly dramatic emotional scenes and characters being unharmed after being punched across the room. Is it any surprise my dad considered it one of the best video game movie he’s seen so far?

Like any good Resident Evil story, my interpretation of it was like so: A load of convoluted balls.
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The Deadly Language Barrier

Monday, September 13, 2010 at 9:24 pm Comments (3)

Am I doomed to having nothing interesting to talk about besides what movie I’ve seen lately? It’s geting a little boring having nothing of interest to discuss outside of some moving pictures.

I watched The Ruins, an idle suggestion I received and then I promptly spoiled everything about it for myself before watching. American tourists and their German hombre go to an obscure ruin, but it’s covered in a strange, sentient plant life that the Mayan locals consider to be an infectious plague, and anyone who’s put in contact with it is killed or quarantined to the temple. Can you guess where the remaining hour of the film is spent?
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GUNS AND KNIVES

Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 1:20 pm Comments (1)

I went to see The Expendables a couple of days ago. It was a toss-up between that and Scott Pilgrim, and I guess we just decided that since Expendables has been out longer, we might as well catch it now before it’s gone. Mind you, given how niche I hear Scott Pilgrim is, it might not be long before it’s gone from theatres too! OH WHAT A DILEMMA

So there’s this multi-racial group of bikers and they’re all played by these big actors and they’re contracted for dangerous work, their latest mission to track down some dude who defected from the CIA and is gaining profits from a Mediterranean dictator’s work. That’s about it, really. Explosions and gun fights ahoy!
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What happened to the goat?

Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 9:34 pm Comments Off on What happened to the goat?

Watched Drag Me To Hell last night. I’d only seen posters when it came out, and given how they quite blatantly showed what happens in the ending, I was under the impression it was some kind of battle-your-way-out-of-hell nice-girl-becomes-ass-kicker sort of thing. Instead it’s kind of Evil Dead with a sprinkle more plot, a bigger budget and a fetish for bodily fluids excreting from one person’s mouth into another person’s mouth.
Uh huh.
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Mask of the Phantom

Friday, September 3, 2010 at 1:34 pm Comments (1)

Oh, the irony. The very day after I made explicit notes to myself to begin a regime of backing up my files more consistently and to make routine check-ups of my computer’s wellbeing, it gets a virus and I have to spend the whole day doing countless scans to remove it. Aren’t computers great? I’ll use that as my excuse as to why I could only post the August 28th entry now rather than, you know, on August 28th.
Earlier this week I couldn’t think straight. I could barely remember what I’d actually done each day, and I’d struggle to remember if I was even productive at all. Did I try and work on any of my projects? Or did I sit on my ass and play games all day? The truth eluded me like the movements of a troublesome wasp, and I could do naught but curse myself for my slothsome folly.
Eventually I blamed it on the box art of the Phantom DVD.
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