Chindie

VII is the one usually held as the best, and indeed as one of the best games ever. But big FF fans sometimes say that VI is the pinnacle of the series. And occasionally people like me that found VII a bit dull and liked the way IX seemed much more fun filled and preferred the more straight fantasy of that game to VII's steampunk vibe.

Agreed, much better this week.

Agreed. Funnily enough in the story by Stephen King, Red is a white Irishman, his nickname coming from his hair IIRC.

Stephen King didn't like this casting at all an he doesn't like the film either. Which invokes the Alan Moore argument on adaptations - it doesn't matter what the original author thinks, the project has to stand on it's own. In the case of Kubrick's Shining, I couldn't see anyone else in that role.

'I have an army' '...We have a Hulk' Avengers Superbowl commercial. Looking better, still concerned that the art direction is diabolical, the clips so far just look... wrong. Blown out, simplistic.

I watched a bit of footage of XIII-2 the other day and didn't have a **** clue what was going on. And didn't want to either. Final Fantasy died with X for me. And even that felt a little disappointing following IX. Which I adore. I've not played it in probably 7 years and I still adore it.

Actually picking up on something I missed yesterday, if you accept the idea of ones nation being the one one chooses best fits oneself (which I wouldn't), then that would just further reinforce that what we have now is not international football. Because the rules don't allow you to just choose who you want to play for without limit, nor change allegiance. What we actually have now is a halfway house with greater leaning to interstate football without actually going the whole hog. I don't have an issue with the rules as such, it's more of a semantic issue over the term exacerbated by a dislike of the concept of 'nations'. States are more defined, if at heart as equally arbitrary in their conception, and more useful, and possibly even fairer in a modern day (depending on how you define nationality). Anywho... yeah. I don't give a toss, just give us someone good. Not that it'll make the slightest bit of difference.

I'm hoping, in a way, that the weather will keep customers away sI I can have a quiet shift today.

Sky looks full of it still in my part of Great Barr/Kingstanding, but it's stopped coming down.

Hulk looks a bit like his classic comic iteration, Cap looks laughably shit, Thor looks ropey... hmm... :| New trailer is getting shown tomorrow during the Superbowl, hopefully will reveal a little more of the baddies that the teaser for this trailer has a few quick shots of.

It's getting there, pelted it down for the 90mins or so.

My flippant point isn't exactly the linchpin of my argument, but whatever, I don't actually care about nations, as my argument my dictate how pointless they are. Noone ever agrees

Living on a slight hill has provided some entertainment tonight. A chap spending half an hour trying to get his Passat up the hill, wheels spinning, reversing gingerly back down the hill before trying again, blocking the road time and again, before finally ditching it. From here it also looks like he might have left his window open too.

So if someone were to emigrate to the US from say, Britain, and then gives up his British citizenship for an American one, he can't be considered American? Of course people can choose which nation they belong to, it isn't about where you're born it's about where your heart lies. State is not necessarily nation. Citizenship is not nationality. America is interesting as it's 'myth' is one of 'E pluribus unum', out of many, one. Nationality being a choice simply reinforces it's meaninglessness. As said, if that's how arbitrary it is, I'm now Spanish. Fed of up of Singapore? Choose to be American, dude.

You seem to have missed my point somewhat (I've never been that bothered by Klose, incidentally). Cacau, is a German citizen, indeed, and thus under current rules he would be allowed to play for Germany. But that undermines calling it 'international'. Citizen =/= nationality, state does not necessarily mean nation... Cacau would not, under the proper consideration of what a nation really is, be a member of the German nation (although Germany itself suffers when you start to consider 'nationality' properly, because a great number of German nationals don't identify with 'Germany', they identify as Bavarian, Saxon, etc etc. But put that by the by for a moment). Nations are imagined communities, united by common myths and legends, 'ethnosymbolism', some hint of primordial connections (which is rubbish, but appeals to the ideology regardless). Cacau has none of that - he's of the Brazilian nation, but a German citizen. Unless you want to say that Cacau can choose what nation he is part of, without being what would traditionally be considered that nation. In which case, I'm now Spanish thanks, and really proud of that World Cup . Which in turn in my opinion just points out how pointless the whole idea is - It's dumb. Hopefully that reveals what I mean when I say that nationality in football is an absurdity, perhaps more so than in any other capacity.

How can nationality be meaningless in international football? :? Because we don't really 'do' international football. Look at the German 'national' team. They have a Brazilian playing for them, some Poles (one of which were we actually really doing international properly possibly wouldn't even play for Poland, he'd likely play for a nation that doesn't have a state, Silesia), and so on. The idea of nations, the real idea, not what people think 'nation' means, is so utterly dumb that it's meaningless at it's heart. Football's idea of nations then takes it even further, because it waters down what it considers one's 'nation' to an absurd degree. It lets you hop around what you consider your nation to be, based on something that actually doesn't impact much on what actually is ones nation (they allow a citizen of a state to represent that state - theres a difference between being a state citizen and nationality), and then say that once you've represented a 'nation' you can no longer change your mind. What football does is closer to interstate football... but then they don't allow you to change your mind once you've decided in a sop to 'nationality', which if you were doing interstate football properly would not happen. It's meaningless.

I disagree. But I've no interest in arguing the toss so whatever.

Hearing a lot about this being pretty hard to find. Certainly today our place had about 8 copies across both platforms. Including just 2 on PS3. Which was annoying because I wanted to buy it

Shame about Chris Huhne, I always quite liked him when, as ever, he stayed off the overt party line. Oh well, reap what you sow and all that. And the hideous Judas party is undermined further. I agree that Tuesday's PMQs were one of the first times that Milliband can claim to have 'won' it, summed up by that cracking line. Sadly that 'line' is all you I can say won it for him. He's got no venom, no conviction in delivering his oratory. He sounds like he's reading a line, not throwing out a riposte. It was a blooy good line and you could tell that Cameron was thrown off by it... I guess he figured Ed didn't have it in him. I would say though, as Andrew Neil might also point out (as anyone who watched This Week last night would know ), that as good as the line was, it's inaccurate... because Cameron never 'vetoed' anything. He just said he did to appease to a Eurosceptic faction in his party and also to sell himself to a public that largely doesn't get the EU, nor like it, so unlikely to call him out on it. But yes. Milliband doing something good, someone mark it in the history books, treasure those copies of Hansard, they're gonna be slim on the ground.

Remains one of my favourite players.

God yes. I think she's in my top women full stop, let alone over 40. A left field suggestion... Juliette Binoche.

Another week, another word removed or 2 on QT. Digby Jones, as ever, anyone associated with a party... But this week we are graced by someone from the Tax Payers Alliance! I missed the first half of the show, so maybe she saidd something less than hateful, but this bitch appears one of the smuggest, money obsessed twits I've had the misfortune to listen to. Shes the Heil personified, with all the horror that brings.

The Grey is bloody good, but bleak as ****. Trailer is fairly misleading - it's not an action film at all, which I knew but some people in the screening seemed disappointed.

Hopefully off to see the Grey tonight

^A thousand times this. Can't disagree. For an idea of the kind of trouble they're in, there's been some talk of them accepting a lower offer for Jelavic from Everton than they'd received elsewhere because they owned Everton money on a transfer from donkeys years ago and selling to them at a lower rate effectively allowed them to write-off the money owed in one go.