• Blockbuster (link to Blu-Ray & DVD within same page)
• iTunes UK (amusingly entitled Kick A*s) – £3.49, or buy for £9.99

I had assumed Blinkbox would have allowed you to rent, but sadly no:

• Blinkbox (buy only at this point – £9.99)

And as a release treat, the marketing folks have set-up a Kick-Ass Yourself web site.

All I would want from a car is that it works. That I can drive it from A to B without the engine falling out, wheels flying off, and if I were to ever have an accident, be reasonably well protected. I do not want to see cars tap dance on the moon, avoid giant paintballs, drive their way through 60s backdrops, outrace a panther, or anything else. Even without CG, I don’t want dead people to tell me how to express myself through a car brand. They’re dead. Why would I want to associate a car with DEAD people for crying out loud. Okay, they didn’t die in car crashes, but still I’d like to hear testimonies and words of wisdom of expression from people that are still alive.

I had watched the Roger Christian film and .. here again may make me look a complete fool .. rather liked it. So I decided to buy the book (which had been re-branded with all the film guff) and started to read it. And I rather liked it. Sure, the characters are somewhat one dimensional, stereotypical and madder than a bunch of crunchy frogs, but the was something within the story – it’s sheer audacity with regards to it’s epic-ness that drew me into it. I couldn’t see any parallels with the Church of S., but the Wikipedia entry enlightened me on that one. Doesn’t change my opinion of them one bit – which is perhaps not printable for this blog. I went for the story, and was entertained. That’s all.

Having read the book, my opinion of the film changed to that of sheer contempt. While a brave effort, it does not do the original story any form of justice whatsoever. It is a violation of book to film adaptations on so many levels. Yet, I still would like to see a film or TV adaptation of the book. Possibly even a full scale radio play. It could never be one film, and it should never use actors on stilts and silly hair extensions. CG augmented performances would lend a better style to the Psychlos and the other alien races. What I’m perhaps saying is that the original film came out 10 years prior to it should have done.

But could somebody bring the story to the screen/radio again despite all the controversy over the author and his church? I don’t know. Perhaps not now. Would people be ashamed of going to the cinema to watch it? Would anybody (perhaps other than myself) admit to liking Battlefield Earth these days? I doubt it.

Mr. Dashing, the man whom he shared the room with, reveals that as the lights went out, he could see his companion shed his human disguise and eat five babies he had smuggled into the room, before finishing off his meal with a couple of hamsters (although Mr. Dashing refused to say if he actually ate them..). One hamster was revealed as being gay – the others were quick to deny it and referred the press to their solicitors.

Mr. Vague’s wife of 2,300 years also admitted that she too was a space reptile and found that living with humans made her a better cold-blooded animal. Although she did say that eating her husband’s political rivals gave her enormous pleasure and found was very difficult giving up eating MPs, who gave her too much gas.

David Macaroon, the PM, gave his full support to an alien invasion and welcomes our new overlords, saying that our country will only be stronger for it.

I had some dealings with Tarquin way back on Stardust and early on in Kick-Ass’ production (in the hope to secure a new interview with Jane Goldman – but ultimately failed miserably – #MartynFAIL). Good bloke and I wish him even more success with X-Men: First Class and Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall. Note: just to make things clear, the above interview was not done by me.

I’ll only be convinced of the show if Gaiman is involved with it. And I’ve seen the pilot (whether or not he is involved).

I’d probably imagine that it should take place a couple of years after the original story – after all, revenge is best served after a lengthy period of time. Let the juices stew. Let the anger REALLY build. Then let Red Mist and his horde have a go at Kick-Ass, who may have hung up his crime fighting suit for good after the exploits of the first story. Even crime fighters need a rest. But we’ll see.

Speaking of X-Men: First Class, it seems to be more of X-Men: Class Wars given the amount of anger and bitterness on various forums and discussion boards about how the story will be handled, with some threatening to boycott the film (a fat lot of good THAT’ll do). Either way, people have to realise that (a) even hardcore superhero films still have to some vague appeal to the general masses in order for it to recoup the budget and make money, (b) a film is not a comic book. We’ll see what the overall reaction is when the film starts to get early previews and screenings next year.

Thanks to Spotify, I’ve been listening to the original Tron soundtrack composed by the electronic keyboard genius, Wendy Carlos. I think it’s an absolute gem of a soundtrack, and although I am pleased that Daft Punk are involved with Tron: Legacy, it’s a shame to discard the work of Wendy, whose themes within Tron are so memorable. Only time will tell how the Tron: Legacy soundtrack will stand up to that of the original, but one must acknowledge Wendy’s work on the first film. Without which we’d have no Tron: Legacy at all.

Just received the following email from a chap formally of Escape Studios, announcing an event being hosted by Smoke & Mirrors. I shall not be attending, as I’ll be in Romania at the time having a bit of a knees-up.

Hello everyone!

I’m super pleased to announce the official word on SSA London.

Attached you’ll find the invite, but here’s a bit more info on the event.

Thursday, October 7th 2010 – 6:30pm

Join StudioSysAdmins at Smoke&Mirrors London, 57/59 Beak St. W1F 9SJ, London, UK for an evening of networking, drinks and presentations from OCF (GPFS basics) and Boston Limited (Supermicro’s upcoming lines) and a brief about the community from myself ala how you can contribute and what we’re hoping to achieve in the coming months.

Please do come out, and bring anyone you feel could benefit from being in a room full of London’s finest engineers, resellers and production staff. Even if you’re not part of the list, or they aren’t, we do hope you can attend!

There will be prizes on the night (oooooh!) but they won’t be given out until the end of the meeting, so be sure you get a raffle ticket on entry, and stay until the end to see if you’ve won! Afterwards, we will be moving on to a pub in the area (most likely the Old Coffee House, on Beak St. – roughly 50m west of S&M) for further good times and drinks!

The night will be roughly like this:
- 6:30-7:30 – Entry and drinks
- 7:30-7:40 – SSA Introduction
- 7:45-8:15 – GPFS basics and Q/A – Barry Evans, OCF
- 8:20-8:50 – Supermicro discussion – TBA, Boston Limited
- 8:50-9:00 – Prizes, and closing
- 9pm-? – Drinks down the way!

I’m sure we’ll run up a few things late, and all that, but should be pretty easy!

See you October 7th!!

More info on www.studiosysadmins.com.

Within the past two and a bit weeks I’ve gone from level 1 through to level 6. I was at level 11 before I originally left the Power Posters/Top Contributors program and before I deleted my original Google Account to try and resolve an issue with Google Accounts/Google Apps and Docs. Which turns out was an unpublished known issue and I hadn’t had needed to delete my account at all. Sigh.

I forgotten that I used to enjoy helping out on the forums. It helps concentrate one’s mind on the task, and I think helps when I deal with my own customers. Also, it’s quite exciting (sad, I know) watching that little blue bar increase with every few posts – edging you ever closer to the next level (and with it, particular privileges). The are a number of downsides at the moment, and I’ve listed them below.

Biggest frustrations:

Google hides their only-if-things-really-break contact forms for the Standard Edition when people need to get them, and finding them without bookmarking it is a complete pain in the arse.

I very much doubt I will be invited back to the Power Posters/Top Contributors program again (what I like to think what I’m doing at the moment is penance for leaving in the first place), but if not, I would have to consider stopping helping out due to the lack of ability to escalate and be aware of problems that may not necessarily be known to the general public. Google is, and always will be, not a terribly good customer facing company. There is a good point that I could make regarding this, but I suspect my NDA would not allow me to mention it. Google is far better at innovating and developing products then they are dealing with existing customers. It is vital, then, that they have volunteers on the forums to bridge that gap. I did note that somebody at Level 4 was immediately converted to Top Contributor/Power Poster status recently. Who knows?

So should I continue helping out? I think so – at least for the time being. But I don’t know when I’ll get bored or fed-up with the lack of not being able to do anything useful due to lack of tools.

Speaking of lack of decent human contact – 32 days without Postini problem being resolved. No contact from Postini. I’m now intending on bringing this issue up with UK trading standards, through Google’s London office. Will still be writing to head office in Mountain View about this separately, mind. I love Google, but I wish they’d stop buying companies for a while and spend that $100 million or so improving the support infrastructure. If Google want people to trust them with all the things they’ve said about cloud infrastructures, they’re going to need to back that up with good solid, quick, support.

That said, Google appear to be moving much more to Microsoft-style reseller program. It make sense – as a reseller you can do a bit more than what direct support can do. For example, one can cancel a trial in mid-test and convert to the paid product. Resellers can deal directly with accounts quickly and easily, and may even be able to fix problems over the weekend when I haven’t been able to do so with direct support. But then again, I’d hate Google to turn into another Microsoft – a company that seemingly distances itself from it’s customers (since when have you been able to get support for your copy of Windows directly from Microsoft?)

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