Chindie

Your God created Satan, and is yet to do anything about him. Your God is an idiot. Haha you resorted to abuse, you lost the argument, god always wins! I'll be laughing at you in heaven come judgement day* *which hopefully will be soon...

Yeah it's mad. You can't see the money on the screen. Even John Carter (biggest flop of all time) you could see where the money went, it just looked like it went on absolute shit. This looks like a 100m film. They must have wasted an absolute shitload on it. They allegedly started shooting it before the script was finished (crazy), and shot it in 2 distinct bits (which is mad as it basically means you have the costs of setting up the production twice). Add in rewrites and arsing around with the dates and well... this film wasted an absolutely crazy amount imo. It must have. The madder thing is the old rule of thumb on turning a profit on a film - you need to double your production cost, to cover your other costs. It looks like $375m figure covers some of those costs, but you can bet there will be more on top of that. This needs to be looking at making $500m to be fairly sure of making money. I can't see it doing it.

Men in Black 3 comes out next week. Anyone seen the speculation on the budget? $250m on making it alone. Theres speculation the film's actual cost is more like $375m when marketing and distribution is factored in... It's 10 years since the last film, which was crap, is MIB a thing any more? This could be another struggler at the box office this year - theres no buzz about it. And it doesn't look that good either. Hmm. I think someone'll have dropped the ball on this'un.

I thought I'd caught sight of a big cockerel sign in the sky...

Last they said was he either just needs an injection (which he's had) that'll help him along the way and he'll be ok for the tournament... and if not it's an op and he's out. The worry there is... if it's bad enough that maybe an op is needed, you've got to think that an injection isn't going fix a lot. And if it does, you've then got to worry about it possibly flaring up in the tournament (in the 3 games he'll play...). And we don't really have an alternative. The closest is Barry but even he's not really the same player.

It's hard to really argue with a fair amount of that squad - England isn't overly blessed at the moment, the latest generation hasn't set the earth on fire and theres the lingering edges of the last 'golden' generation to choose from. So you can see why the squad looks like it does. But the thing that strikes me is this - Gerrard, Lampard... why? Gerrard has done pretty much nothing this season, and both he and Lampard are fastly fading forces. They're not going to be there in 2 years (or at least they bloody well shouldn't be) and this tournament is effectively a write off anyway - why bother? Give someone else a crack, prepare for the future. I'd have binned Terry as well. He's poisonous and his star is fading. Cut your losses, gun for the future. I've no idea what Defoe is there for. He's a player who's barely good enough for Spurs these days, and they've been desperate. I can sorta see why you take Welbeck, though I don't much rate him... but no Sturridge?! He's quality and can offer a threat wide even. I'd have probably given Holt a go as well - he's probably deserved a day in the sun on this season and, chances are we're going to go terribly so take a risk. I said before Hodgeson needs to bin the old guard and I'm not surprised, though I am disappointed, he didn't. If things go badly this tournament they'll knife him, metaphorically, and the papers will only be so happy to help. We aren't winning this tournament, he should have used it to learn about the new blood.

Just done that actually, I got the posted application done as well in the vain hope it makes it. They gave me a direct email to someone, fantastic. In my hurry to get it sent, I left the beginning as a 'Dear sir or madam', when I know their name now. D'oh! Oh well...

I've just sorting out an application for a job, bit last minute so thought, I can email the application, the deadlines tomorrow, post is cutting it a bit fine, go for the email. Do the application form, which is a pain in the arse in Word and always is (you end up having to fudge around awkwardly laid out tables and requirements for ticking options), everything sorted, knock out a cover letter esque email, whack in the email address, add all the attachments necessary, hit send... 5 minutes letter get an email saying it's failed to send. It's done this 4 times. I then used the Outlook link. Which it turns out, says it's to the same address as the one I'd be given, the one that makes sense, but actually isn't, it's to a slightly different address that looks distinctly like a typo. Now that one... that one's gone off fine. As far as I can tell. But I don't trust it, of course, so now I'm running round sorting out A4 envelopes and lots of printing in the hope I can get a first class postal application to the London address before the deadline, which is tomorrow, hoping that by tomorrow being deadline they actually mean tomorrows the last day they'll accept them and not, today is the last day and tomorrow they throw all the ones received in the bin. What a **** joke. I don't even know whats wrong with the email side of things - every time I send the application to what I understand to be 'the address', I get this notification email saying it failed.

On wiki values Manchester United - £143.6 - 148.6 Manchester City - £215.05 - 215.95 Although the Citeh ones are slightly problematic since a couple of the biggies were undisclosed and the closest 'accepted' values are most likely wrong (Silva is clocked at £30m but nobody seems keen to say for sure and Tevez was rumoured to be £47m but that figure's been denied). However given the difference, I think it's fair to say Citeh's team cost more. The argument is, as the Rev says, silly as all hell though - every team buys the title. And Manchester United have used finicial advantage for donkeys years. I have more sympathy for the argument that Citeh are a particularly poor example of money from nothing, like Chelsea, and both have made a mockery of the money in the game. But hey, not a lot you can do about it.

The game is done and playable - there are guys in this thread that are playing it now, or have done this evening. The problem appears to be that, as part of what they've largely refused to acknowledge as a anti-piracy measure, Blizzard, the developer,require the game to have an always on net connection to work, at all, regardless of whether you wish to access the multi side of things. That means that, if something goes wrong on Blizzards end, it doesn't work. When you spark up the game, it'll refuse to allow you to play it and throw out a load of error messages. Now, any game with any net requirement, servers and all that, on launch gets hammered as loads of people try to log in or whatever. Even the best games creak under the stress of that. And Diablo is no different. But it also looks like they've cocked something up on their end as well - they more or less disconnected the servers this evening to do 'maintenance' for 3 hours. If it was just the weight of stress on the servers, the problems people had would be rather more... intermittent than what they are. There would be more people getting lucky and getting through than what they seem to be, and there would be other associated problems for people, lots of drop out, etc etc. Diablo would also appear to not be too heavily stressful on the servers. It's not like massive amounts of data are being shoved through them for each player, it should largely be fairly simple stuff for single player connections and anyone playing multi wouldn't be straining the servers like something like even WOW would to my knowledge. And while there would obviously be huge numbers of people trying to play (it had insane preorder numbers and is a very popular franchise and very anticipated), Blizzard should be aware to those numbers and prepared for it. Then you've got a number of issues with installs and downloads... It kinda feels like they've dropped the ball rather a lot on a lot of basic stuff. The game itself, once you're through, is apparently fine, great even. The game itself isn't the problem then. It's the infrastructure. They've cocked up. Blizzard are big enough and smart enough and have enough experience of this lark to not make mistakes like this.

I don't think he'll touch us with a bargepole. If there was guarenteed, decent money long term, he'd be here pretty fast as it's an obvious move up the ladder. But I don't think we can offer him that (we've a laughable net spend in recent years). Couple that to the horrendous state of the squad, I think we'd approach him, Norwich would eventually give us permission to speak to him under pressure from both sides, and he'll hear us out, hear 'No money, cut the wages, sort out the squad' and say 'Er, no thanks chaps, I'll wait for the next one if it's alright with you'. I dearly love him to come, and under better circumstances I think he would, but on the basis of the last couple of years, he'd have to mad imo.

A busted installer is just amateurish.

I actually the first 3 Alien films (well, the Assembly Cut of the third, anyway) for differing reasons and I jump about between the first and second as for which my favourite is. Aliens is great but it's great flaws, for me, are Newt, who was a good idea on paper and then they got a child who couldn't act to play her (subsequently leading me every time I watch the film to hope against hope that this time the xenomorphs will get her, soon), and more problematically, James Cameron Longwindeditis. Hes a great director, few missteps but if you want sci-fi action he's your man, but he can't edit a film. Aliens is a film that feels far, far too long. It's only about 2 hrs 20 long but dear me it feels longer. It takes an absolute age to get going. And you kinda understand why but all the set up... you could do it in 20 minutes and be happy with it. He takes double that, perhaps more (it's been a while). And obviously he's got his preferred cut, the Special Edition cut, which is even longer! Every film he's done suffers from it, some more noticably than others, Avatar is the worst offender as it's a long film anyway but then is so packed with so much po-faced rubbish that you can't forgive it the length, and then he manages to make it feel baggier and even longer somehow. And then he did an even longer cut of it too! But on rewatches Aliens actually annoys me a little at how baggy it is until it gets going. Alien doesn't have that problem. Ridley Scott made a taut film, it flies along and it still feels fresh to this day. He so felt he had nailed it so much, that when asked to a directors cut, he actually ended up with a shorter film, feeling the pace was so bang on if he added a couple of bits he needed to take away elsewhere. There is an argument some people make about how Cameron's film disappoints because he decides to reduce what was an enigmatic, mysterious and quite frightening creature from Alien, into a giant nasty bug monster for space marines to gib. A lot of the 'expanded fiction' of the Alien universe is derived from that and a lot of fans of the original film don't much care for it. I'm personally Ok with that aspect but I can see where people are coming from.

Thats the thing, I've seen pro reviewers slate games for having broken online on launch before now. I'm just wondering whether they'll go easy on Blizzard. The thing thats most damning about this for me is, well, partly it appears to be more than just a weight of user base thing, though thats clearly not helped, but that something has really gone wrong at Blizzards end. In a way, I almost would take a childish glee in such a big release being completely broken. It rarely happens nowadays and to happen to something as anticipated as Diablo 3, it could be hilarious (though obviously would be shit for all you fellas wanting to play what should be a landmark release). You have to assume they'll have it all sorted over the next couple of days but... it's not really on, is it?

I'll be interested to see whether this effects review scores. It would in a major online release, an MMO or fighter/shooter in 2012 with multi going to market and being as bust as this appears to be would be slated for it.

GiantBomb are doing a live QuickLook of this right now. The moment they properly went to start showing off the game, they've been hit by error after error preventing it running The game appears to be largely broken on launch - it's into the realms of unacceptability imo, that for such a big release from such a major company, they've gone to launch and gotten a situation where massive proportions of the user base are unable to play it.

Maybe they think that such a handsome chap shouldn't be alone? 8) It's a bit like going to a car auction. If a car looks very clean but the price is suspiciously low, then there's something badly wrong underneath. DO NOT BUY. If a decent looking bloke is single then he must have some issues you only find out about afterwards I think this is why I subconsciously refuse to believe that I can look alright sometimes

This Yeh, me too. It's been pretty dead this past week or so. I thought thered be a bit more talk with Max Payne out this week but er... apparently not. Diablo is huge but the PC scene has become so niche that theres not that much debate.

The Transformers comment is so wide of the mark that to continue this would be even further an exercise in futility.

Thats where I stand, and it's the correct stance. Theres stuff I like, and stuff I don't (I have a distinct distaste for the pretentious... hence a lot of French film is simply not for me). I wasn't having a pop at Mike there really, I understand something like the Avengers isn't going to float his boat. It was more inspired by our new resident film snob who chucked a fun, well made film under a bus seemingly because it was popularist. Drives me mad.

Loki and Hulk - He doesn't turn invisible - he can throw a... shade?... of himself. It's effectively just a magic trick and only really works if he has chance to set it up, something he didn't have when the Hulk arrived. Iron Man - Most audiences find him quite funny, in the comics and films his ego and personality rub up against other characters, he is after all arrogant and self obsessed (you might say with good reason, he's a billionaire playboy philanthropist after all...) The Hulk - He is indestructible. He has a healing ability that is so powerful he basically is unkillable. He's only proven weak to exceptionally powerful 'sonic' attack, something that happens, briefly, in the set up Hulk film. Gods - Yes the 'gods' Loki and Thor are effectively just aliens, from Asgard (though Loki is adopted and actually of another race), though both are particularly special - Thor is immensely, immensely strong and with Mjolnir, magic hammer, can control storms and their associated power. Loki is weaker but is supremely gifted in magic, making up for his physical weakness. As for a God of Earth for the MArvel universe, it's never really been dealt with to my knowledge but I believe the Marvel universe accepts that earth is what it is now largely, so you can assume their are Christians in the Marvel world, for example. The Tesseract - Isn't dealt with particularly in the films but it's to be assumed that Odin lost it somehow. The Red Skull, on finding the cube in Captain America, simply says it was the jewel of Odin's throne room. There's also more than one of them but the films universe doesn't touch that, perhaps smartly.

Film snobbery (this possibly can be extended to all cultural snobbery) Twitter Constant references to bookies odds Whenever I notice theres a new post on the Games and Gaming forum and click on it only to discover it's another comment for Football Manager/Fantasy Football/Fantasy F1 threads That one of my favourite websites and podcasts added a new staff member about a year ago and he's slowly killed my love for it.

Oh come on Mike... you're better than that surely? Why any film? It's just a subgenre of action films. They're often quite fun escapism.

Presumably he'd feel similar about us

It's probably not true. Twatter, etc.