BTTF

Recently I finished off watching the Back to the Future trilogy. I saw Part I a while back, but I watched II and III for the first time in the last few days. As usual, the sequels aren't quite as good as the original, but the stories are pretty interesting, if complicated at times. Back to the Future is cool as it involves two of my favourite eras - the 1980s and the 1950s. All the parallels and situations involved, as well as a great story in general, make the films fun. I find this site interesting, as it goes into quite a lot of detail with time travel in relation to different time travel films. If you're interested check it out.

The weather has been good over the last few days. I'm starting to notice that the weather affects how good I feel. Sun and light just seem to make me happier in general. I can't wait for summer to come around, I'm getting tired of cold.

Here's an interesting story I just read at the Nintendo Europe site - Sonic and Mario to feature in their first game together. It's been coming for a while, and while it's a good thing that we're getting a lot of Sega games on Nintendo platforms, I'm not totally for the two characters in the same game together. To me, it makes the characters and their worlds less special, and reminds me of bland games such as Mario Party, which aren't always that good. The concept of this new game does sound slightly strange, I guess it'll be pretty big when it does get released this Christmas. Read the article to see Miyamoto ask a silly question about Mario and Sonic.

Related to Miyamoto and questions, I found this pretty interesting - Miyamoto posing a question on Yahoo! Answers. I'm glad Nintendo are doing this kind of thing at the moment.

Easter break is here

I've been listening to a lot of Rage Against The Machine lately. My respect and admiration for that band grows constantly. Their music is just so powerful, lyrically and musically. Their 1992 self-titled release has to be one of the best albums of all time. There are so many good tracks on there it's crazy. I love how simple and clear this album sounds, yet everything is just so dynamic. I especially enjoy the funky bass and Brad Wilk's drumming - he really knew how to use the snare drum to create a groove, and there's quite a minimal usage of toms, but every rhythm is killer. Amazing stuff.

Easter break is here. I finally have some time off again, although I have a test after the holidays and an essay to write soon. My band are hoping to write some new songs during the break - that should be fun.

Last night I went to a ska night at the university. It was good fun. I used to be really into ska and it'll always be a form of music I really enjoy. There's not much else like it.

Also, for my podcast we recently recorded an interview with one of my favourite bands - Anamanaguchi. It's a cool video, check it out at the podcast website.

ブログ ポスト

The title of this post is "blog post" in Japanese. A couple of friends recently told me how to type in Japanese using Windows XP. It's quite simple to get the hang of, although it's a slightly strange system, mainly because Japanese and keyboards aren't all that compatible. It could be quite useful in my studies, especially with spellings and kanji.

Last night I was in town and missed the last tram. Here in Sheffield trams are useful most of the time, but the last tram is always before midnight, which means you can't stay out in town all that late. And living far away from the city centre means that I use the trams very often. After realising I had missed the last tram I phoned a couple of friends to see if I could stay over at their places in town, but no answer. So I decided to catch a taxi home and I quite enjoyed it actually. Taxis are like going to the hairdressers, the whole experience feels quite personal, if expensive. I'll be moving out next year to a house much nearer to the city centre, and hopefully I won't have to rely on trams any more.

Assorted things

Here are a few things:

I just passed my driving test! This is such a relief for me. I've been driving and taking tests for ages now and my life has just become a lot simpler. It's been so long that it's taken the fun out of driving, but now I can drive, and will never have to take a test again.

I ate some new kind of Liquorice Allsorts the other day (even though they don't contain any liquorice). They're called Dessert Allsorts. At first I misread the package and thought there would be lizards and sand and stuff, but there are actually new flavours such as summer fruit pudding and lemon cheesecake. This is great because I only really enjoy about 15% of a bag of normal Liquorice Allsorts, but all these were nice.

Apparently English accents make one sound educated, which is useful. Things are looking up.

Also, Spheres of Chaos played a show with Anamanaguchi at the weekend. I'm not going to write about it all here, but you can find out more about what went down when they got to the UK at their web page. We had a really good time hanging out and the show was awesome - photos and stuff can be found at the Spheres of Chaos website and we recorded an interview with the guys for the Gamewave Podcast. That should be up soon.

Borat and Demetri Martin

Last night I finally got the chance to see the Borat. When the film was originally released, unlike a lot of my friends, I had never heard of Sacha Baron Cohen's character. I was surprised to see the film receive good reviews and various friends had told me that the movie was unbelievably funny. I was slightly sceptical, but I can say the film is extremely entertaining and I don't think I have ever laughed so much whilst watching a film.

The concept goes that a news reporter from a backward town in Kazakhstan travels to America to learn about foreign culture. The film is produced as a documentary, but whilst watching I did wonder which, if any, parts were not staged. After some internet research I was quite surprised to find that the majority of the scenes were not staged. Although there are various conflicting reports, this site does a good job of separating the scenes into fact and fiction. Knowing that the scenes were filmed with real people, not actors, makes the film even more entertaining.

It's interesting to see all the problems surrounding the film. Many of the participants have filed lawsuits, stating they were tricked or lied to. The Kazakhstan government denounced the film, saying it is misrepresentative of their culture, and launched a campaign called "Heart of Eurasia" to counter the effects of the film. At least the nation has been brought to international attention of some form - we don't often get to hear about the Eurasian region. I know I'm behind the times in seeing this film, but I find the whole scenario interesting enough to mention.

Recently, I've also been watching a lot of comedian Demetri Martin. I first saw this guy when the BBC screened one of his stand-up shows a couple of years ago. Martin combined humour and clever word play with anagrams and palindromes to excellent effect. He uses one liners really well, and often plays an acoustic guitar whilst telling his jokes, which helps move things along nicely. Many claimed he would blow up in popularity, but that hasn't happened yet, although Martin has recently created some short animations to be used in an advertising campaign for Windows Vista. If you get the chance, definitely check this guy out. Very funny, very clever geeky comedy.

Further reading: Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Wikipedia article and Demetri Martin Wikipedia article