Chindie

Loads of filming going on for this at the moment in and around Nottingham. And a couple of weeks back they were filming in Croydon, where... And apparently Some pretty interesting stuff. Especially if you know your Batman given details about characters we already know about and what the Croydon set was supposed to be... There is also a rumour flying around that a stadium in Pittsburgh was going to used (and demolished) in the film, which City officials denied... however casting has been going on in the city for the film and including an awful lot of people being hired to be 'Sports Fans'.

Designer1 in the 'Given isn't actually that good' camp too, join the club!

Exactly. Glad it's not just me that thinks he's actually not that amazingly superb as many think.

He was certainly in a car crash in 1990 and badly injured. He appears to have always been a fairly grim looking chap though so the face he currently sports may just be age and gravity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQn0Q3dUHWs. Should be the last of the Marvel licence to print money set up films for the Avengers, again looks like it'll be slightly shifty to me. One of the tag lines for this is laughably patriotic - Heroes are Made in America, I actually almost find that off putting even in a film about Captain America. Best thing about this trailer by miles is it's choice of music - **** Tool!. And a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tja6_h4lT6A.

I chuckled too to be honest. I'll laugh even more if he actually went to Russia, which I wouldn't put beyond realms of doubt.

Recently bought by a Russian billionaire who has quickly pumped in money in. They are the current employers of Roberto Carlos, one of the clearest examples of the money going in - they've given him 5m Euros a year and the owner bought him a Veyron for his birthday.

Never played them, have no intention of starting from what I've seen of them. You mention Final Fantasy - those are a series of games, clearly quite Japanese, that I do roundly enjoy. However it's also worth noting that the FF I love most, 9, is probably the most 'Western' in it's outlook and art direction and style, given that is effectively at heart a hodge podge of medieval mythological characters and references in the Western fantasy vein, and given a slight Japanese bent on top.

^Ditto. I was rather taken with the Joy Formidable that was just before... might need to investigate them further.

It's more than just a form of animation imo. Thats rather like saying 'what's to get about French cinema - it's just film'. It's a form of animation that embodies it's culture, like all other forms of artistic endeavour it in some way represents it's birthplace and it's creator's cultural landscape. And I don't connect with that. Sure in some cases it's more apparent than others. A mecha based piece is going to be more extremely alien to a Western pallet than, say, a Ghibli piece. But they are both painted with Japanese tropes, and Japanese leanings, and Japanese 'spirit'. Some people adore it - it's noticeable I think that people who tend to like anime are often nipponophiles generally, and will watch/love a wide range of anime. I can think of no-one I know who enjoys some anime, that doesn't love an awful lot of anime. I don't engage with anime. I don't 'get' it's brilliance. It's often incredibly alien to me, I don't appreciate the humour, the spectacle, the style generally. It's a curiousity to me at best and not something I could ever claim to love. I've seen Grave of the Fireflies and it is a powerful and great film, but it's a solitary blip on the anime scene for me. This thread, and workmates love of anime, encouraged me earlier to watch an anime I remember seeing when very young - Guyver. I caught it on youtube. I don't get it. I follow the story, and so on, but I don't get it. I don't get whats great about it. Same goes for Evangelion. It's not like I'm down on all Japanese things either. I love Battle Royale, Mono are one of my favourite bands, I've been known to listen to Dir En Grey... but rather like I don't get a number of Japanese videogames (curious design choices, odd artistic merit, goofy humour, overblown melodrama), anime leaves me baffled.

Radiohead (and I adore the band) were apparently a bit of a let down in their so secret everybody and their dog knew it was happening set. Not managed to catch any of it myself on the coverage though.

Pretty much. I suspect it would end up looking a little like EFTA/the EEA does now, though more refined (you only need to hear Michelson speak on here to see the downside to that arrangement), and perhaps with slightly wider reach. The worry of course would be, and I suspect you're trying to get at this point, that they'd just do what they already have again. You would hope that the lessons of last time would mean they both refrain from that and also learn that something approaching a constitution outlining what the union both can and cannot do were instituted from the word go.

I don't necessarily think a future union would go down a single currency route. I suspect many might like it to, but I also suspect that supposing the Euro did fail too many fingers would be burnt to quickly go into it again. I currently think that any future version of the union would be smaller (taking fewer risks on 'emerging markets' than the EU of the late 90s decided to) and would perhaps return a little more to it's routes. I forget the exact term used for it, but it would be along the lines of 'seperate, but alike'. I think that middle ground can work, but only if the aim is a middle ground, and not a middle ground founded on a desire from some for a USE, some for a simply economic union, others for nothing at all, and so on.

I still don't think a USE would ever happen. Too many interests would be squashed and squeezed to let it happen, and too many differing thoughts pulling in too many differing directions for it ever to win out. The current version is effectively just built up of compromises, middle grounds and 'making it up as we go along' for precisely that reason. The Germans wouldn't like it to begin with (indeed you have to suspect that part of the reason Germany has been quite so keen to be harsh with the likes of Ireland for example is partly down to the fact they know this kind of thing can make their bubble pop and they wan't to ensure people pay for risking that), but if the EU collapsed entirely they would perhaps quite keen to get back into a union with the likes of us, and France, etc (pretty much just excluding Southern and Eastern Europe), to have strong economies to sell to and buy from. Certainly we'd like it - we already trade more with the Eurozone than anywhere else - if it goes pop we'll feel the collapse.

Glad it's not just me that is thinking this years Glastonbury is shite. Elbow have pretty much be the only highlight.

I was reading an interesting comment piece in the Grauniad the other day, not got time to link at the moment unfortunately, from a pro-EU fellow who was saying that even he had begun to believe the EU as it is now is in it's death throws. He suspected it would return with some lessons learnt but in a far less sizeable iteration - most likely a 'Northern European Union'. I must admit that even as someone who is roundly pro-EU, from my perspective the union now is looking it might be starting to lurch to it's grave if things go very wrong further, but I do think that the idea is far from it's deathbed and would return in some capacity soon enough. It could be good for it in all honesty, once the dust had settled.

I've never, ever, came anywhere near 'getting' anime.

It's generally regarded as a bit of turd. Surprised the beeb picked it up. It was very disappointing. Shallow and dull, with a very poor script. With such rich material that is a shockingly missed opportunity to make a great series. Not sure whether I'll persevere with it; at the moment leaning towards "not". Unsuprised. It was originally commissioned by the History Channel in the US who hoped it would be a dramatisation of fact. Instead they got given what amounted to a soap with no depth at all and rejected it. I saw the Review Show critique it on it's US release and it wasn't flattering.

Apparently it's true. Rumoured to have had a passenger with him. And to have been drinking.

Some of the mechanics haven't aged that well but it's surprising how well it still plays imo. I had a crack at it in my lunch the other day and was surprised that it still stood up. It's sometimes clunky and more recent games would have not been made with some of the decisions it has but it's still fundamentally a top class game imo. Thats not just nostalgia either. I sparked up the original release last year and it was rough as hell to someone now accustomed to a more modern game. A lot of it is the visuals and **** about in menus I think. The one thing that the DS offers is less menu-fuckery. I think I know exactly how much shrift I'd give a 12 year old raised on COD's opinion . I will say that all the copies of Zelda we sold while I've been in have gone to guys who blatently loved the original admittedly.

£30 maybe be steep, but RRP on it is £40 iirc and we're doing it for £35 . It is the best game ever though... and you do get Master Quest and it really has been tarted up quite a lot (models aren't any different, nor is the world geometry, but they've all been given better textures and smooth out a far old bit - this is the best OoT has looked or is likely to look). The 3DS itself... not as well as might have been hoped is the impression I got. Price has steadily come down already (current offers - £180 with what amounts to a launch title, £200 with Zelda) and I think we've still got some of our original shipment of stock knocking around. I've sold... 3 of them I think, since launch. It's still too expensive and still doesn't have enough blow your socks off titles. The launch of Zelda was actually expected to see it, and the console, fly off the shelves, as our sales targets for Friday can attest. Instead, we sold about 7 copies, and not a single console.

It isn't empty but there's not that much in it, and the till itself keeps track of the days takings and starts each day at zero for each transaction type - we aren't allowed to go into minuses on the till's count, simply because we can't guarentee we'll get it back up over zero. It also would potentially screw up any ability to offer change to any other customer. So we couldn't offer a cash trade in from the moment the store opened.

The 3DS isn't that blessed with titles at the moment. I think I'm right in saying that there are no Mario games available on it yet (although of course theres loads for the bog standard DS that it'll play). There is a Mario game in the works though, made by the same chaps as the Mario Galaxy games where on the Wii, and it looks pretty good. Looking to release in Japan at least by the end of the year IIRC. Mario Kart is also coming down the line too. Speaking of Zelda, I had a crack on it yesterday. I love OoT, but I was surprised at how well it's transferred to the 3DS. It looks great too - Link in particularly has been tarted up no end and the whole game has been gone over, sharpened up and given some new detail. The 3D can **** off but if you do want to use it, it's probably the best I've seen on it.

Work seems to be a great font of little things that piss me off at the moment. We offer cash trade ins for pretty much anything gaming related - if it can go through the till, is in decent nick and you've got I.D., you can get cash for something, assuming we have the cash in the till. It never ceases to amaze me that people don't get that last bit. Common sense would dictate that if you want to get cash for something, you go in at a time when there's likely to be a surplus in the till. So not first thing on a Sunday morning. A chap comes in expecting us to be able to give him the circa £100 for what he had on him at 10:30 on a Sunday, when we've literally just opened, and done no business. He then acts like I personally ruined his day.

Each film is split over two blu-rays as well I think. That's not great either... It's not ideal, but I can imagine the reasoning for it. The films were long to start with, adding in 40/50 mins to each of them and also scaling up to HD, whacking them across 2 discs probably makes a little bit of sense. Saying that the cynic in me says that all they've done is taken the work they did for the DVD releases back in 02/03/04 and just remastered them, disc break and all. Another thing with the transfer that may annoy some is that it's not a 4k transfer, which the best Blu-Rays releases are. Why? Because the film was made to what is equivalent to a 2k transfer, and thus the SFX was also made to that standard. You could master to a 4k transfer for the non SFX shots, but the SFX would then look weird. So you'd need to ground up redo the CGI, which in a series of films that cost about £300m all in to make and knocking on for half of that in CG, just ain't happening. Saying all that, I'm still buying them. I love those films pretty much unquestionably. I've never actually seen the second extended edition. I intend to get a free day and just sit down and watch them back to back. Marathon style.