Chindie

Bleh. A lot of bluster saying nothing. I think judgement is reserved until E3/they release more details of precisely what's going on behind the scenes - the actual specs, any infrastructure stuff, etc etc. I'll give it this - I don't mind the way it looks. The kinect being there is, well... expected, but infuriating. It's a shit idea and always will be, and arguably might continue to be shit if the technology expands beyond just being a glorified camera and mic.

Oh look. It's Call of Duty. ... ...

I've only just clocked quite how big that thing is. It's like the size of an amp. Makes sense with the entertainment system thing I guess.

*tick* Forza tech demo. Halo stinger ending is where my money is.

This EA bloke is, unsurprisingly, using lots of words to say **** all. Shock horror, EA reckon the new Xbox will make things more awesome.

Bluray drive then. 500gb drive - not sure if thats not a little skimpy right now. They won't show much in the way of games, they'll wait for E3 for that. This is all about the hardware. I expect a Forza/Halo/Gears tech demo at best.

I honestly don't think that using your voice/motion will ever take off to do basic interaction with the console.

It has an optical drive... Sadly as expected also comes with a new **** Kinect bollocks thing.

It is a sprequel. It ties together the First Class and original Xmen films, using a storyline from the comics that involves the infraction between the past and future. Fairly ambitious undertaking, the cast should be enormous, and already includes Peter Dinklage. Personally I'm looking forward to it. Liked the 'chemistry' between McAvoy and Fassbender in XM:FC (even if the kids characters were slightly...... off. Which I believe we have discussed on here before) I'm curious about it. First Class suffered for it's development - a car crash of 2 scripts after they failed to convince anyone that X-men Origins: Magneto, or X-Men First Class would stand alone so mashed them together. The 'First Class' bit was rubbish, the stuff with Magneto and Charles Xavier worked brilliantly well (even with Fassbenders slow drift towards Magneto'Malley). And the original films were... alright. X2 is a genuinely good film, 3 is ropey and 1 is a tentative step into the modern comic film world. So weaving both timelines together in such an ambitious plotline is intriguing. Could be brilliant, could be a car crash.

It is a sprequel. It ties together the First Class and original Xmen films, using a storyline from the comics that involves the infraction between the past and future. Fairly ambitious undertaking, the cast should be enormous, and already includes Peter Dinklage.

My mom won a copy of Jurassic Park on VHS from a TimeOut. We've still got it. No video player mind.

In a frankly shocking turn of events, Game of Thrones this week was excellent. Again.

The Lion King. It's strange, I've not seen that film in years, and it was also one I rarely watched as a kid, but I distinctly remember loving it and can still remember seeing it in the cinema like it was yesterday.

My moneys on it being the worst of the series and therefore probably quite average. I'll play it still but I'm not holding out much hope.

There isn't any, you're right it is literally an argument over semantics. The gay side argue (with validity) that they aren't really on an equal footing if what they have is considered in law to be a different thing (that encompasses all the same benefits). It's not even that civil partnership = secular marriage, a marriage is nothing more than a contract anyway so any marriage is effectively a secular one - the religious stuff is quite literally frippery. This is entirely argument over a word. The against mob makes some absolutely daft arguments back (the usual 'marriage=man and a woman, the end. Cos the bible/my book/God says' is the corner stone) including a personal favourite of mine, that allowing same sex marriages will devalue all those already extant heterosexual marriages. I'm not even sure how they work that one out but I don't like to think too hard about the type of mind that will consider their marriage sullied because Janet and Jane got hitched down the road. The Church biased element also is particularly against the change because they're absolutely terrified if same sex marriage is allowed to call itself that, they'll have a load of court cases on their hands when they don't want to do it. In my view that's up to them to decide and of course the ones that do make a stand will only be easier to find so we can point and laugh at the bigots more easily. All over a word. Madness. It's interesting that a few voices today have piped up and said they should open up civil partnerships to heterosexual couples - I wholeheartedly agree, as I know you do too Mike, and I hope that opens the door for 'a civil partnership' becoming a much more useful bit of legislation letting anyone sign a bit of paper that entitles 2 or more people to be viewed as a single entity in law in certain instances. It's also interesting that Nick Clegg piped up and basically told people clammering for civil partnership equality to shut up - he seems to be afraid that it's intention is to create animosity to the same sex marriage bill (which he may be right on in fairness... but it's actually a wholeheartedly good idea).

I might actually follow the gay marriage discussion, it's always hilarious watching morons (cross party) tie themselves in knots and spout offensive codswallop on this subject, because they never can come up with a decent argument against it.

Star City.

I know I shouldn't, really, because they're the most inoffensive run of the mill band going and thus should inherently be a bit boring... but I do quite like the Boxer Rebellion. ^New single is pretty good.

I always snigger when Edwards is mentioned. Especially when he'd been dead for a few decades by the time the person mentioning him was born.

Eh, I'm having a particularly shitty weekend I tend to look on QD games slightly disdainfully - they're never as smart as they think they are. And David Cage always seems to be a bit unlikable. Bleh.

I hate steak. Whenever we used to have steak at home it was always frying steak fried to the point you could make serviceable shoes out of it, the meal consisted of chewing till you had jaw muscles like Arnie's biceps and the veg had rotted, and it always tasted shit too. Ever since it's a meal I really don't look forward to, despite all the years that have past and a brief renaissance it had when we did a weekly steak night at uni. I don't think I'll ever enjoy it. So I like my steak a long way from my plate, and preferably still in a butchers.

I'll look forward to seeing how much pretentious arse this is.

A mixture of things. I'm not up in arms about many things, true, and I suppose to an extent resistance is futile... but mostly because that resistance is using a system I find to be somewhat broken, hence my not engaging with it terribly often. I also, frankly, have more things to worry about further up my agenda. As intimated above, I'm not sure how much a fight that actually is. But fair enough, just curious.

No. They've only dropped it either because they believe they will make more money from dropping the requirement (by allowing a larger audience to access online purchase opportunities) or there's a better system to achieve the same thing on the way. Nothing to do with listening to the consumer IMO.

I'm not. What sort of political activity?