onsdag, januar 31, 2007

24 - season 1-5

As I didn’t see those before, I started a marathon of watching all seasons of 24 to get up to date in Allistar Mcleans answer in the TV world. 24 – a series that tries to captivate the viewers by giving us constant thrill for 24 hours – 24 episodes.

The success in doing this is partial. Sometimes you are thrilled and can’t stop watching while at other times the story is really lagging behind and some of the thrill elements are dull and the choices made just doesn’t seem real. This is specially seen in the subplot with Kim Bauer (luckily they cut it out) but also in the Presidential side.

In the later series they try to keep up the thrill but unfortunately after season 3 they kind of had used up all level one threats to the country and try to find new things. Does it succeed in giving a thrill then? Mostly it does. A lot of action, gadgets, and sometimes storylines without an obvious choice. But it is like this: If you have seen one episode – you have seen them all. (or maybe not?)

I am thinking of making a in dept review of all the seasons. But I have a feeling that in the end I wont be bothered.

Borat (Movie)

He he. What to say, another comedy that plays fully on humor based on sex as well as laughing about the less being of others. This way many would say that it isn’t humor as much as speculative fun.

Don’t get me wrong though – sometimes this movie is hilarious and you’ll laugh out. But then again, this is the kind of fun that you’d have enough of in doses of 30 minutes – not a full length film.

Never Winter Nights 2 (Game)

Never Winter Night I was the first of the old but excellent Bioware games that went full 3D. The first installation tried to be some kind of Isewind dale (more action/less story) but at the same time have a slight story to follow. Problem was the story line was the kind of: The plot is so obvious everybody know what happens next except the ingame characters. Except for that it was pretty good.This is now quite a while ago.

NWN2 looks and feel much like it first. There is not much that screems out that a lot happened to gameplay and gfx since that. We have the same problem with camera angels. The same problems with AI including pathfinding. It looks old. And the GUI is problem ridden like before.So it would mean that NWN2 is a dead end? Not really. Remember that this is a game coming from the same people that gave us Star Wars KOTOR. People that knows what gamings is all about.

The story line – while not as interactive as one would wish is still so captivating that before you know it you’ll be hooked. The settings and the moods also used by the gfx is so well done you easily forget that the gfx is not up to date.

In fact its like this: The more you play – the more you get hooked – the more you forget about all the games weaknesses. And this one is way better than the first time around.

Go and get it!

Winter came?

Well we finally got some snow around here. Roads were slippery this weekend - even when it was pretty cold. These days I am reading: “The weather makers” of Tim Flanelly. It is seriously a good book about a serious issue. Scary I would say. However I do believe that everyone could do many things in daily life (without changing lifestyle too much) to help prevent global warming. A little bit here – and a little bit there.

Be cautious about how you live. But it has to be done without hysteria. Ex. Our Government who prioritizes electric cars. This is because we in Norway have a tradition with water electricity so it is a common understanding that this is a good idea. Problem is – stored electricity is most inefficient. It is only ecologic when used from environment friendly energy (like water energy). And sadly enough Norwegians consume (as well as export) so much energy that we need other energy sources as well as from water.

I like most good Norwegians believed el-cars to be a good thing until I went abroad for a few year. One other thing from our Government is the slight tax reduction on Diesel cars (without requiring filter) that will lead to an increase in the dangerous dust created from these.

There are generally many areas that goodwill can become wrong if one doesn’t look further into the material. I haven’t finished the book yet and it is supposed to end with some solutions… so we will see…

lørdag, januar 06, 2007

Entrance of a new year

Well. The Christmas Holidays this year was pretty much without snow. No white Christmas at all. So I haven’t been up to posting any winter pictures yet. All over the place it is blamed on global warming. It is alarming to think of that although counter action against global warming has been on the agenda at least since I was a little child – the progress with ever more pollution and extortion of the environment is continuing. We are definitely facing some interesting years in the future ;) Anything can happen.

First of all let us concentrate on the new year. Let us do the best out of it (whatever that means huh huh) and enjoy life.

I do think that there will be snow soon – a lot of it – but then again I might be all wrong.

All the best wishes for 2007.

- don Chand