Max Payne, again...

Well, I tried to avoid it. I waited several weeks, but I just have to do a followup to my earlier post about the Max Payne movie.

In a nutshell; seeing this movie did not make me like the games any less.

But that's about the only good thing I have to say about it.

It seems to me that the writer was merely provided with a list of names (people as well as places) and told virtually nothing else.

The basic, broad (very, very broad) strokes of plot are there, but nothing else seems even remotely the same. It didn't even seem to be familiar. None of the set pieces seemed to survive the translation to screen.

The music wasn't even the same. I really liked the music from the games. I can't even remember the music from the film.

If you haven't seen this film yet: don't bother.

If you have: my condolences.

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Now playing: Bryan Adams - Empty Spaces
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Citizenship Quiz

This is cool.

I got 93%!

Mostly because I didn't pay enough attention to a couple of questions...

Warning: there's 96 questions on the full quiz!

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Now playing: Rammstein - Amerika
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Michael Crichton has died

Michael Crichton died of Cancer recently, he was 66.

I loved all the books by him that I read (I think I have read most of them) I liked many of the movies based on those books (sometimes the worst adaptations were the funnest to watch).

An avid believer in the concept of Chaos Theory (that small events have far reaching impacts and things fall apart) Crichton wrote some of the best stories of good intentions gone wrong, and made them all seem plausible (even the patently absurd ones) and scary (even the weird ones).

The best laid plans often go awry and Michael was there to point out the dangers of unconsidered advancement, putting on the brakes every now and again and asking ourselves to think about the consequences of our actions shouldn't be a bad thing.

Even when we try to better ourselves and the planet we should be careful and pay attention to the ramifications of our actions. Rushing headlong into the future can be exhilarating but so can careening off a cliff, at first.

I enjoyed his writing and much of his directing and I will miss his contributions to the world.

And don't worry; Nothing can go W0rNg%@.

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Now playing: The Animals - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
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The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

It just occurred to me while re-reading the opening of the novel 'The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy' that in most respects the website 'Wikipedia' is the Guide brought to Earth...

Here is the original description of the Guide;

"Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one — more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?

In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover."

Seems to be an apt description of Wikipedia itself and of its use in our lives.

I don't know why I never made that connection before.

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Now playing: The Beatles - Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
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I Voted

And I hope you did too.

Even if there seems to be no one you wish to vote for, surely there is someone or something you wish to vote against!

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Now playing: Devo - Freedom of Choice
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