Epic Fail and Batman

I’m sorry but this is absolutely ridiculous. The world is full of stupid people.

Not meaning to be degrading or anything like that, but seriously. I had a go at editorial for publishing it on the front page. I suppose it would be a nice human interest story if the woman wasn’t so stupid.

I mean, yes it is sad that the poor boy can’t go to the Gold Coast – especially since he’s in remission for cancer and everything. But, reading between the lines, his mother had the ability to take the money out of the finance company a week ago and she chose to reinvest it for another 30 days instead.

This amid reports that Hanover was in trouble because they had invested heavily in Five Mile and Dave Henderson and that loan – worth millions of dollars – was defaulted on. But just because and employee of the company told her the money was safe she thought she’d be okay to re-invest.

Plus, it’s not like they’ll never be able to go – Hanover is working on getting the money back to investors. It’s a process, lady. You made a bad financial decision and now it has to work it’s way through. That is life, and yes it sucks but, the way I see it, if you take a risk in investments then you’ve got to be willing to strike out every so often.

And there’s still a chance they’ll get their money back, it all sounds like it could be quite positive. The funds are just frozen to prevent a run on the company and – like I said, the odds are they will recover some of the money.

In other news…the man who went with his friends to recover a stuck vehicle, got stuck himself and then died 2km from his house when he told his friends to go get help. At midnight, in the middle of the storm. Stupidity? That article here.

I have a few things to say: Firstly, it is terrible that a man died. Secondly, it is terrible a man died for so stupid a cause. Thirdly, I cannot believe we ran this on the front page of the newspaper. Fourthly, with friends like the ones he had – who needs enemies?

It is terribly tragic that he leaves five children behind – one who is only 10 months old and will never know her father. But there are a number of factors that contributed to such a tragedy, and to be honest this tragedy could actually have been avoided had a few things happened – namely, that people had utilized common sense and not gone out to rescue and (presumably abandoned) vehicle that was stuck in a riverbed at midnight in the middle of a storm.

But according to his partner he “does this all the time”. Apparently he is some sort of superhero who goes out rescuing stranded cars in the middle of the night all the time. AND he’s an asthmatic.

He is basically more awesome than Batman.

Of course, if he was Batman he probably would still be alive today. Or, at least he’d have a more reliable sidekick – like Robin. Sadly for him he had three incompetent friends. All of whom abandoned him to the wild weather and the cold. When he couldn’t walk. Which is what all good friends should do. That and not call the police as soon as you get home when your friend is missing and risks dying from cold and exposure. Wait a few hours, then call them. Stoopid!!!

Pictures courtesy of www.failblog.org.

Speaking of Batman, we went to see The Dark Knight last night. Man, it was awesome!!! It did make me sad to think that Heath Ledger will never reprise the role of the Joker. I think he might have damn well been the best Joker I have ever seen. I have no idea how they’ll replace him for the third. We came to the conclusion that the only person who could possibly replace him was Johnny Depp.

I think I will have to buy it when it comes out on DVD and I’m not even that great of a Batman fan. I have to say that the last two movies would have to be the best representation of a comic book I have seen in the past few years.

I have no words to describe it. The acting was superb. Christian Bale is awesome as Batman, probably one of the best I’ve seen. (Certainly better than George Clooney!) Heath, I have already spoken about – he was just incredible and it is so, so sad that this role might have been the reason that he was on sleeping pills and resulted in his death. Also, I may have to join some sort of “I love Gary Oldman” fan club. Because I really do love Gary Oldman. He’s just so versatile! (Sirius Black vs. Commissioner Gordan)

Just…wow. If you haven’t seen it yet you probably should!!!

Good Luck Chuck

Ahh the Simpsons :)

Simpsons Movie = good fun.

It was basically like a really long episode of the Simpsons. Which can be nothing but good. Long, but not TOO long - otherwise it might have gotten a little tedious.

It was definately worth the going though. Plenty of laughs abounded. I have to say that my favorite sequence would have to be Bart skateboarding naked through Springfield - very cleverly done!

Anyway, was fun times for a flat and associate outing. (Minus one flatmate.) Jem, Jen, Isaac and I hit up Starbucks after - not our usual hang out as we all prefer Coffee Culture and we soon learnt why! I ordered a mini cheese cake - which LOOKED good behind the counter but was basically impossible to eat as the only thing holding into together was this plastic wrapping that was virtually impossible to remove without destroying the fragile cake. In the end we had to get Jen's swiss army knife out and cut the cake free. But it was pretty munted by then!

Our hot chocolate was incredibly strong - to the point of almost being unbearable. It was like they'd used cocoa to make it. Maybe it's an American thing??? Jennifer's iced chocolate was more ice than chocolate. And not nice crushed ice either. Big, combined blocks of ice was more like it!

We were NOT impressed. Needless to say, the cheesecake looked better than it tasted as well! We won't be going back there anytime TOO soon. Rock on Coffee Culture - too bad it was closing when we got out for the movies.

Apart from that it was a pretty quiet weekend, if I do say so myself! We were supposed to be hanging with some of Izook's mates from Spreydon on Saturday night but the evil witch spawn of Satan was going to be there - so we gracefully bowed out of that one. (Moo ha ha!)

Probably a good thing as this weekend will be pretty full on with Wayne and Libby here to drag us kicking and screaming through boot camp :) Fun times.

I leave you with Spider Pig - the most awesomest pig ever...

Transformers

I figure that seeing the movie twice gives me the right to talk about it like I know all about Transformers - which I don't really, I remember watching the cartoons as a kid, but my memory retention of ANYTHING from when I was a kid is pretty poor.

I love this movie. I eagerly await the DVD release (even though it's only been out all of 3 weeks...) just so I can own it - and all the associated special features - on DVD. The thing I love about this flick is the fact that it just didn't take itself too seriously. Transformers has always had a pretty far fetched plotline at best, lets be honest it's a program based on a range of toys put out by Hasbro!

The special effects were awesome.

I mean, hello? Check out Megatron. Wicked cool. Plenty of action for the boys and a decent enough story line to keep the girls happy. There's even a love interest! I even enjoyed the product placement. Mainly because it was so damned shameless. I figure that the General Motor Company basically sponsored the entire movie. Them and HP.

Although I was amused that around the time of the world's satellite communications basically dying all the Hewlett Packard machines were just about useless but the iMac brought in by Sector 7 guy was still going strong.

If the phone lines had been up and running the HP call centre in India would have been bombarded with complaints. The answer is, as it always has been, to buy Apple.

Shia LeBeouf does well in this movie. He's grown up since Holes and to score a part in a blockbuster like this just goes to prove that he's going to do well for himself in the future. Plus, he basically saves the day - so that makes him a hero in my eyes! AND he gets the girl. Score one point for nerds all across the world!

The entire cast were tight and the movie wasn't just all action adventure, it was funny to boot! I had to laugh when Captain Lennox was getting pissy at the operator on the other end of the line while trying to make an emergency pentagon call. That is my life - minus the nose picking - just about every day!!!

No, I'm not kidding!

Also...does this mean that if I ever need to get hold of the Pentagon I just pick up the phone get the operator and they'll transfer me through?

Perhaps it's best we don't think about it too much.

And while we're speaking of Captain Lennox - whoar is Josh Duhamel ever HOTTT. Yes, he deserves the three 'T's. The second time around the movie was all the better for the eye candy.


THAT and the fact that I now know that Optimus Prime was voiced by the original voice actor. How's that for continuity!

Bring on Harry Potter!!

Eragon: An Epic Flop?

There's been a lot of hype surrounding this movie in these parts. For one thing, you can't go ANYWHERE without seeing a movie poster. They're on the back of buses, in bus stops, in the malls, in kfc...the list goes on.

The book is fantastic. Almost brilliant when you consider that Christopher Paolini wrote it when he was only 15.

The movie was a classic example of one of those big budget films where they spent more money on advertising than on making the movie any good. If I was Paolini - and I don't claim to have the ability to write a novel at age 15 - I would have never allowed such a vigourous bastardisation of my work.

The movie followed none of the original plot, it removed everything that was interesting about the minor characters and excluded a large number of major characters and characters that would play a major role in any future movies they might want to make. (Although, judging from the response from most people they may not make any future movies anyway...)

How can you do that? How can you completely twist the plot of the book so that it is virtually unrecognisable?? It almost makes me feel ashamed of my little duelling Eragon from KFC that sits on my desk. The book had plenty of scope for a fantasy epic - possibly not up to the standards of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or even Narnia. But it had potential.

Unfortunately, really bad casting, the lack of a good script - not to mention the lack of a plot of any kind - and poor character development, completely destroyed this film before it even had the chance. Perhaps if they'd spent a little less on special effects and more on casting? The characters were virtually unrecognisable and the film conveyed a feeling of moving along as quickly as possible so that we could get to the major fight scene at the end. (Which, btw - did not go at all as described in the book...) Basically, the film moved so fast that there was no chance for the characters to develop.

We mainly found the film funny even though it wasn't meant to be.

It's really unfortunate because I was really looking forward to it!

In other news: Read Eldest. It's SO much better :)