My latest ramblings

When I remember that I have it, I occasionally use this blog to vent my spleen, or occasionally discuss things that I enjoy. This time I have a mixture of both for you lucky people.

First, the good. I recently bought Batman: Arkham Asylum on PS3. Now I'm not the world's biggest Batman fan (I still think Adam West was the best Caped Crusader), but the game was getting rave reviews so I thought I should give it a go. Pretty glad I did, because it's incredibly atmospheric and has some pretty varied gameplay (as long as you find solving crimes and punching people in the face varied). The graphics are pretty decent and the voice acting is a cut above most games, especially Mark 'Skywalker' Hamill's turn as Joker. It's a lot of fun beating the shit out of things and using your Batarangs, Batclaw and explosive Batgel (the filthy bastard). It's a bit short though. Even I completed it in about twelve hours and the Challenge Mode is a bit repetitive. Still, well worth getting for the storyline and it's a lot of fun while it lasts.


My favourite moan of the moment is major studios fucking up their Blu-ray releases. The most famous example in recent memory is Gladiator, a film I don't particularly enjoy, but which was hotly anticipated by seemingly everyone else on the planet. When it arrived it had shit loads of edge enhancement, DNR and even missing picture information thanks to the automated scratch removal process. Way to go dickheads.

It's not just Maximus who has fallen foul of idiot studios. I was watching one of Paramount's Star Trek films last night (The Undiscovered Country) and apart from the annoyance of finding out that it was only the theatrical cut (and so omitted a lot of my favourite moments) I couldn't believe the amount of DNR. I know it's Star Trek, but only Odo is supposed to look like his face is made of wax. The edge enhancement isn't much better either. The image below sort of illustrates the effect, although I have exaggerated it (because I'm like that).

Disney's awful treatment of Zhang Yimou's Hero is another example of this worrying trend. Why the fuck would you give the English dub a Master Audio track and the original Mandarin a 640Kbps Dolby Digital track? Retards.

On the bright side there are a number of excellent catalogue films due for BD release in the next couple of months. Long-time favourite Gremlins is finally getting a release (unless it's cancelled at the last minute again) and Michael Mann's Heat is also on the way. Manhunter will also be aailable in the US, so I might have to import that one, although I think it's only part of a boxed set with the other Lecter films and I already have those... A Nightmare on Elm Street was listed on Amazon the other day but has since disappeared, which is annoying. Oh, I almost forgot South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (finally with Parker/Stone commentary) and Galaxy Quest. Good times.

On a completely unrelated note to all of the above, last weekend I went to London to watch my brother-in-law in London's Strongest Man. Now I've always been a reasonably big lad in comparison to most people, but I felt like a child compared to most of those blokes. My BiL is lighter than me, but he's also a lot shorter and sixteen stone of muscle as opposed to my 99% body fat. Thing is, he's tiny compared to some of the monsters that were walking around. Ex-Britain's Strongest Man Terry Hollands was there competing in a different category (which he won embarrassingly easily) and that's the first time I've ever stood next to a 6' 7" 28 stone bloke and it was quite humbling. Just look at the fucking size of him!

I also suffered the ignominy of having one of the slightly less freakishly-sized competitors spotting me holding my Mrs' bag for her, at which point he sneered 'handbag' in a derisive tone. Cheers love (my Mrs not the strongman). It's almost enough to make me go to the gym, if only I weren't such a fat lazy bastard.

Oh, my BiL came sixth out of twenty-four competitors, but there were only a few points between him and second place. Apparently he should have placed higher because they fucked up the scoring and a couple of the competitors (i.e. the winners) used 'strong suits' for some of the events and weren't eligible to be in the competition anyway. Top organisational skills there.

The best bit about the whole day was the little dolly bird running around for obscure Sky TV channel L.A. Muscle (watched exclusively my women and homosexuals I assume). It was most amusing watching her skip (literally) about and giggle at everything even the dullest-witted of the meat-heads said while failing miserably to chat her up. She was fit though.