Finally….details of the extended edition of Return of the King have been released. Again four disks the film has over 50 minutes of extra footage slipped into it – thats 250 minutes in total. Over four hours. Need to be careful or deep vein thrombosis will set in.
Blog
GT4 Offline
Bit of a shock – GT4 has been an online game for PS2 since it was first announced. Now comes the news that to meet a release of this Christmas the online component has been dropped with an online GT released next year…some time. This is a good move – online gaming on the PS2 is pretty lame compared to the Xbox and PC. The GT4 prologue I played at Graham’s earlier this year promised lots – I just hope there’s a bit less emphasise on improving and tuning your car. For me this makes the game unrealistic and ultimately dull.
Europe Win the Ryder Cup
Colin Montgomerie has just holed the putt thats clinched the Ryder Cup for Europe. For the first time I’ve listened to golf on the radio (5 Live) and it’s…..difficult. It’s time’s like this that Sky is tempting. £99 for Sky+ and a monthly subscription to Sky Sports for £33 is making my mouth water but I hope the feeling will pass over the next few days.
Back to the golf – a fantastic win for Europe although the Americans looked out of sorts not helped by some odd pairings on Friday. It looks like a late night for me as I catch the highlights on BBC2.
Darth Vaders Helmet
Monday sees the release of the Star Wars boxset. To get in the mood have a look at the making of the new Darth Vader helmet for the upcoming Episode 3. Just under 2 mins, just over 5 meg but a nice glimpse at not only the helmet but of a green screeen fight scene between McGregor and Christensen.
Spread Firefox
Looks like the browser wars are back. Spread Firefox has been launched to promote the Firefox 1.0 preview release. Even the previous owner of the domain firefox.com has handed it over. Using Firefox is a joy compared to Internet Explorer, but I can’t see them overhauling IE. It really is only the geeks and the tech-savvy that are using Firefox at the moment – it will be a while before the average user downloads Firefox and understands the difference.
Magnificent Seven
What a player Larsson is. Great to see him back in Scottish football playing better than ever. In all honesty the better team won – if the game was judged on the first 20 minutes of the second half then Celtic could feel aggrieved but over the 90 minutes they were outclassed. At least there still in the Champions league!
One year on and what a difference a year makes. I’ve said elsewhere that McLeish would be out by November – I now think he’s one dodgy result away from being shown the door. The real poser is this – who could replace him and do any better?
Burnout for Real
Been playing Burnout over the weekend and apart from connection issues it’s a class game. This video from America though looks like Burnout in real life. The police try 3 times to take him out and each time he managed to regain control. The scary part is that the police tried to take him out in fairly heavy traffic – what would have happened if he hadn’t regained control?
Scottish Pairlament
So. First reaction to above is that I’ve spelt it wrong. Nope – it’s taken directly from the Scottish Parliament website. Clicking on ‘Scots’ to the left of the site takes you to a Scots welcome page.
We hae producit a publication cried “Makkin Yer Voice Heard in the Scottish Pairlamentâ€? that tells ye aboot the different weys that you can let the Pairlament and the Memmers o the Scottish Pairlament (MSPs) ken whit ye think.
Bloody hell. I think it’s bad enough we have to put up with Gaelic versions of sites and the Gaelic TV that we have to suffer but this is taking the piss. Also added are some spiffy new video’s for each of the MSP’s. All filmed in the new parliament building and lasting just over 4 minutes for each MSP, Tommy Sheridans is worth a watch just for the line on how he prefers a Tory as although he dislikes them at least he knows what they stand for unlike the Labour party. Class. If he wasn’t a buffoon and the policies he stood for added up economically I would consider voting for him. Would never carry it out though. Not with that suntan.
I never actually realised that there was a Holyrood.tv website where you could watch most of the parliament debates live. The server is fast and quality is good. Watching first ministers questions from last week shows just how much the SNP had Jack McConnell on the run.
Star Wars DVD
I’ve finally given in (to the force) and ordered the Star Wars trilogy. Amazon will deliver on the day of release (20th Sep) but the chances of it coming that day are slim. Digital Bits has a review of the box set and also screens of some of the changes that are in this release.
It’s a pity the DVD release didn’t take advantage of branching to allow the original and these updated editions to exist on one disk. The tampering Lucas has employed with the originals does not, in my book, make the films any more watch able. Indeed some shots just look wrong when mixed in with the new effects. More fool me for buying them. But I’m looking forward to seeing them – it’s years since I’ve watched them in full and I’ve a week off at the end of September. Perfect.
Windows for Warships
Interesting article on BAE Systems use of Windows on future warship contracts.