banacula

Just seen this in the news this morning Paul Henry quitsTVNZ.

Thanks very much for those touching and indeed groping sentiments.

I would also like to congratulate on officially becoming a thirty-something like in that TV show friends. And as always from me to you Happ Beths.

Say hebbo to Tarvuism, a religion so totally overwhelming you'll be totally overwhelmed. Tarvuisms principal message is 'be nice' or if you can't be nice 'be quite nice'. Tarvuists believe that Tarvu is God and that he created the two universes, Universe A and Universe B (we live in Universe B ), they also believe that the octopus is a sacred creature and eating calamari is expressly forbidden. For more information about Tarvu or to find your local Chabbernackle check out the Tarvuist website. Remember its so easy to join!



This is actually something I'm quite looking forward to, its preamble for a new show coming to Adult Swim later in the year by creators Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper of Look Around You fame.

I like how I look like a rodeo clown.

So I bought this game yesterday, and I must say I'm enjoying it so far. Its a little annoying when you change scenarios just as your getting used to them, the Tide pool stage lasts only about 5-10 mins, which I was a little dissapointed with you can't seem to build up your abilities enough or as much as you'd want. The creature stage is a lot of fun once you get the hang of it but again this doesn't last quite long enough for my liking. You can probably play it for longer by not following the linear gameplay so closely. The creature editor is a bit fiddley, I found as I had never used it before, and was unable to create decent looking creatures. I have only started the tribe stage at this point.

As a big Civ fan I can see there is enough here to keep going for ages ,and several different routes you can go down. I haven't been following the internetting fanboy raves and rants of this game, so I have been able to approach this game without much foreknowledge and I can say that its very enjoyable.

Try it you just might like it.

No, I still visit the boards, though still mostly in an observers capacity. But I can't come here as much as I used to as I've moved house and am still trying to get my interweb sorted after a month. Also if I'm a swastika wearing Nazi, and I did so at you're suggestion, whom does that make you*?



*I'm saying it makes you Hitler.

What happened to last years film, still no youtube? I was looking forward to hearing alot of egg related puns.

Well I haven't relied to this topic as of yet as I'm unsure where I stand on this whole issue. Il Trap has (or will) taken control of our national team, and even though he has a fabulous club record, 10 domestic league titles in four countries, 3 domestic cups, 5 European trophies (3 Uefa cups, 1 Cup Winners cup, 1 European Cup).

His time as manager of the Italian national side was not quite as illustrious, qualifying for the World Cup in 2002 in that tournament his side were knocked out by joint hosts Korea in one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history (although the Italians were on the end of some pretty dodgy reffereeing).

In the European Championship of 2004 Italy were dumped out in the first round in what was acknowledged as poor tournament for the Italians.

The main reason I am skeptial though is lack of quality in the Irish team itself, a lot of the Irish player in the Premier League at the moment are playing in struggling teams near the foot of the table, like thosse playing for Sunderland and Reading. Also our big stars of the last number of years are on the wain, Damien Duff is not the player he was two years ago Shay Given seems to be getting a lot of injuries lately considering he played about 200 consecutive matches before last season, only Robbie Keane and Richard Dunne seem to be performing week in week out for decent sides.

In saying all that I will still hope that il Trap can turn it around, and one has to be mindful of Greece in 2004, an average side with good organisation can triumph.

Yeah, I got their BBC Radio 2 Series on CD over christmas. It predates the tv series and contains a lot of the same material. BBC Website for the radio series

An addition (or should that be subtration?) to the radio series (from the tv series) is that of Neil Finn of Crowded House lending his vocal talents which such great quotes as

I really enjoyed this, its not as fleshed out as the tv show, but worth it alone for the conversation between Brian and his wife about an unruley local in the pub.

Much beloved and ridiculed entertainer Jeremy Beadle has died.

He is remembered as a host of Game for a Laugh, Beadle's About and You've Been Framed. At the hieght of his powers in the late 80's he would pull in as many as 15 million viewers.

Beadle also suffered from a rare genetic disorder which stunted the growth in his right hand, as source of endless amusement for Anthony and myself in our youth.

This picture was in a forum titled 'The evil hand of Jeremy Beadle'.

Who keeps green lighting these movies, this is the exact same movie as Epic Movie with slightly updated pop culture references. One positive to come out is the knowledge that TV's Kevin Sorbo is still getting work, hang in there champ.

Congratu-ma-lations Monster Scally, you have now created life and as a result are as a god among mortals.

Tim Kring talks about mistakes in season 2 of Hereos

Aging in my opinion, is a state of mind. I know that is a terrible cliche, but its certainly true for me. I've always felt about sixteen since I was sixteen even though I'm almost twentyseven. I also do very old man things like hate parties that are too loud and not understand what people see (or hear) in sqeeky voiced techno. But I guess I will always feel young.

I do remember think when I was a child how rubbish it must have been for my dad at christmas getting crappy presents when I was getting computer games and laser tag for Christmas.

I've been meaning to update this thread for a while, but due to scheduling conflicts, I have seen very little after the opening weekend.

Ireland were truely awful in this tournament, barely beating Georgia 14-10, soundly beaten by France 25-3 and second best in every section of the field to Argentina yesterday, going down 30-15.

Another shock was Wales being knocked out by Fiji.

Also the quarter final fixtures have now been decided.

Top Half

Australia Vs. England,
New Zealand Vs. France

Bottom Half

South Africa Vs. Fiji
Argentina Vs. Scotland

So the Rugby World Cup kicked off this weekend with the southern hemisphere nations getting off to the best start.
The shock of the tournement so far was the Argentinians beating the hosts France 17-12.

Holders England weren't impressive in a 28-10 victory over the mostly amateur USA. The Eagles unlucky to be 21-3 down at half time, but showing their mettle drawing the second half 7-7 with the world champs.

The Aussies were in less charitable mood though when they faced a potentially dangerous Japan side. The Wallabies cruised to a thirteen try to nil victory winning by 88 points, final score Australia 91-3 Japan.

Scally's new charges the All Blacks also made light work of their opening game. The Kiwis faced Italy and were already thirty points to the good after just sixteen minutes. They went on to win 76-14, ammassing eleven tries on the way, with Munster bound Doug Howlett bagging a hat-trick.

Ireland, sending their strongest ever squad to a world cup, were less impressive in their opening pool game against Namibia. A string of handling errors almost cost Ireland a bonus point, Ireland in the end triumphing 32-17 against a side which had shipped over 100 points against South Africa in a warm up game.

Elsewhere an impressive 59-7 win for South Africa against a pacy Samoa. Wins also for Wales against Canada and for Scotland against Portugal.

More reports if and when I feel like or if people ask nicely.

So I went to see this yesterday after hearing some decent reviews. First things first, be sure to check your brain at door so you can enjoy this two hour firework display.

I would warn against spoilers but you have seen this story before (not the big robots per say but the narative is directly stolen from several other blockbusters). In fact after five minutes of this movie you can just see the writers meeting room,

Writer 1:"We know the back story how will we bring these characters to life, whats their hopes dreams and aspirations?"
Writer 2:"Its a movie about giant robots blowing each other up in confined city spaces."
Writer 1:"Ok then just throw in as many overused movie clichés as possible."

Which they do successfully, man trying to get home to his newborn baby, check. High School nerd who the hot chick doesn't even know exists, check. Hard ass secretary of defence, check. Hot chick who goes out with the jock who's a jackass, check. And who can forget nerd who can crack the code that four floors government scientists in the pentagon can't, check and double check.

Its the basic every day story of boy meets girl, girl fails to notice guy, guy gets car to get girl, car turs out to be a transforming alien robot. Cue Autobots, cue Decepticons, cue carnage. Forty explosion filled minutes later one in the win colum for the good guys, and end(leaving wiggle room for a sequel).

So review wise this is a good action movie the story and dialogue are formulaeic the characters one dimensional and the action sequences, brilliant. As is standard with Michael Bay for some of the action sequences the camera moves to quickly and makes it very difficult to follow, especially the robot fights, but the cgi is some of the best I have seen (and I've seen Jurrasic Park and Jumanji) and the robots look real.

All in all if your looking for a good action movie consider Transformers recommended.

So I was lying in bed last night thrying to get some sleep when a thought popped into my head from out of the ether. It has been speculated in magazines and in general conversation what or who the love child of two actors would look like of if you merged two actors/famous people what would the resulting abomonation look like.

I have recently discovered that this merging has actually happed in real life, I believe it was the early 1980's that when Hollywood was riding the Bratpack wave it was decided to create the ultimate teen hearthrob. They took two of the most successful bratpackers and spliced their dna.

The results however were not as expected and the new entity took on the worst physical characteristic of both actors.
The people in question were of course Kevin Bacon and Matt Dillon the result of this crime against nature was none other than Kevin Dillon.

So Kevin Bacon + Matt Dillon = Kevin Dillon



+=

I must once again congratulate Liverpool on reaching another Champions League final. As some one who is not a Liverpool (in fact I have a severe dislike for them due to their defensive and usually unwatchable football e.g. Tuesday night) I will find it hard not to be up for them in the final due to the cheating nature of Milan to get to this competition in the first.

Although Liverpool will have their work cut out even more so this year as milan have the world's best player in Kaka.



(I can't seem to embed this youtube, maybe chimpy could give me a hand)

Heroes is an absolutely fabulous show(unlike Absolutely Fabulous), it reminded me of what I liked about the original series of Lost in that it had lots of secrets and all the main characters seemed to be connected in some way. Unlike Lost it answers a lot of questions about main characters without showing an even bigger mystery behind that (though that's not the case for all characters).

I am now up to date with this show s1 e18 and cannot recommend it highly enough, it has started to show in Ireland on Channel 6 and Sci Fi or you can watch online with most of the usual sources (tv-links, peekvid, alluc, etc.)

As for Lost I have kept up to date with it but my heart is not really in it anymore, I really can't stand the Kate, Sawyer, Jack thing also the flash backs for established characters seem to add very little in terms of insight. An example would be the most recent Jack episode where the flashback made no real sense other than being an example of him being an outsider in a different context.
I will stick with the show, but I probably shouldn't.

Make sure you cancel your direct debit or however you pay for it with the bank from the 29th.

I was with this with a gym I was with in London, I told them I wanted to cancel my membership, they said "no problem, your membership will be cancelled one month from now." low and behold the next month money was taken out of my bank a/c. I rang them and said about the extra payment being taken out and they said "sorry about that, it didn't clear our cancellation proceedures in time." So I cancelled the direct debit with my bank and waited for my refund. I got a letter in the post from the gym the next month saying they couldn't take payment for some reason. I got on to them several times that I still haven't got my refund and everytime I got the same response "oh we'll sort that out for you, that should have gone through by now. I don't know why that happend." basically just fobbing me off, and six months down the line still no refund and I'm beginning to think I'll never see my forty sterlings again.

So the moral of the story is

don't join Holmes Places Gym/Don't trust people ever, they are only after your money/I'm a gullible idiot,

delete as appropriate

Hot on the heels of 'Balls of Fury' comes another new year turd, Epic Movie imdb. Don't get me wrong I'm not against spoof movies in principal, Naked Gun, Airplane, Mel Brooks and the like, but if you read this quote I think it is pretty much the entire movie summed up. Who keeps greenlighting these movies and then not funding other worthy (or potentially worthy) like 'Good Omens'.

Anyway I just seen this and felt like a rant.

You don't know how accurate that picture is! Its Martin Laursen of Aston Villa and Denmark, a man who was 'dead' in the footballing world only to come back to life. He was out for two years with a career threatening injury only to start playing again this season. But in a cruel twist to our zombie soccer star was on wednesday cut down by a Bruce Campbell style hero and now looks like being out for another few months, poor guy.

1. I visit the site by going to the front page, then navigating to other parts.
I always start on the front page just to see if I've won on the fruit machine

2. I'd prefer the front page to be more useful.
Well I suppose things could be more useful, but that is the nature of. It is exactly the right amount of useful for me at the moment.

3. I'd prefer the front page to be more funny.
The front page is plenty funny and any one who tell you different should have something horrible happen to their pets.

4. The ads on the front page are a pain.
No they are extremely healthy and informative, why just today I read a funny haiku thanks to one of your adverts.

5. The ads on the front page are totally irrelevant.
I refer you to the answer for qustion number 4.

6. The vast majority of my site usage is just the boards.
Yes although I do go to the galleries every now and then. (but I still can't erase those pictures of me dressed as Hitler)

7. On CWAL1, the vast majority of my site usage was just the boards.
My usage hasn't chaned from CWAL 1.0 to CWAL 2.0

Keep up the sterling work.