ThaOGDreamWeaver

Hey all. I need a new printer for work, as the old one has failed me for the last time, and will suffer the consequences. The new candidate is required to: Print things. Reliably. Black and white, optionally in colour. Decent quality is fine. It's just for work notes and the odd letter, not presentation quality. Scanning would be nice. Preferably one that can scan straight back to a Mac. That's it. Really. Honest. No photos, no auto-generation software, nada. Just. A. Decent. Printer. I do not want it to: Freak out if momentarily disconnected from WiFi Continually require updates from central servers Whinge if use OEM ink cartridges or refills (maybe a tank-based one would be good) Submit anything I create for non-optional optional AI analysis Require or continually advertise subscription plans Brick itself if I do not subscribe to anyone's ongoing service or ink reordering plan Display panic/terminal fail errors for no apparent reason and require reboots from scratch ...so, not HP then. What's good these days? Also, could we have things - even ONE thing - in computing that we just buy, and own, not have to become an "ongoing leverageable revenue stream" to keep the damn thing working?

more stuff by mark…

Beedle The Bardcore vs DMX - Ruff Ryders Anthem

I used Playground AI a lot, but appears Free Tier access has now been entirely cut off. Can anyone confirm on that?

Aron Chupa & Little Sis Nora - Trombone

The Cars - Let's Go

Ah. Guess Santa thought I deserved a bonus drop this year.. .

I’m not sure how tight the parody laws are Down Under, but I really hope they can bring this to London. Love a good cabaret…

So far: a tartan scarf in my clan colours, two frying pans, and WeRateDogs merch. And… I’ve made other people happy today. Which is very much my thing. Including three cats, which is impressive as I only have two and the other one just wants to move in.

The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)

Happy holidays, everybody. See you on the streets of Paragon. - DW, H, Sparky & Loki

…*blink*… wow. I went way too hard with Forbrydstintin.

Calling it now: some kind of blood-soaked cash-in on its way pretty soon. I dunno, like... Tintin In Denmark: an enthusiastic boy reporter and his dog investigate a series of disappearances of prominent Belgian citizens while visiting Copenhagen. Faced with unfamiliar territory, Tintin and Haddock team up with a beautiful but broken Danish police detective. Clues pile up as they are drawn into an ever darker series of games with a dangerous killer, and forced to confront uncomfortable truths about humanity, Belgium's past, and the limits... of... hope... ...wait, that actually sounds good.

Sony tapped three relatively unknown but well-respected directors for the Spideyverse flicks: JC Chandor for Kraven (Golden Globe nom and a couple of other good creds), Dan Espinosa for Morbius (cult-ish Swedish director making a first, and possibly last foray into Whollyodd), and perhaps unluckiest of all, journeywoman Brit director SJ Clarkson. I'm not sure if Sony felt that with relatively fresh mea... er, less authoritative directors, they could impose a corporate vision and a storm of notes more effectively. TBH, I feel that two of the three Golden Raspberries should land on the desk of Sazama and Sharpless for hideous, unworkable, but apparently studio-blessed scripts. And as for Kraven... m'learned coll's @Ghost's point about "getting lucky once" definitely applies to the scribblers, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. They wrote the original MCU hit Iron Man. However, MIB:International and Uncharted didn't exactly extend their streak: see also Transformers: Last Knight (even if they did score Sir Tony Bloody Hopkins his very self to appear in it, who tucks into a ludicrous role will relish and a side of bara brith.)

You gotta admit, he thinks of everything. (And he likes dogs).

I have. It ain't bad at all. it ain't perfect. (I'm definitely not as much of a fan as QT was.) Screenplay clunked a bit, the paternity subplot felt unnecessary and undercooked, and... ....well, Kevin "Kerrrrrrrriiippptonite!" Spacey was the thing that kinda broke it for me. But there's good bits. Brandon wore the cape well, and the other character interplay was decent. Lose the kid, lose half of the first reel, drop more quickly into the action and tighten the rest, and you'd have had a decent little flick. (Oh, and maybe reshoot Spacey with Phil Hoffman if they could have got him). One other thing: that was the 6th biggest flick by box office in 2006, 9th worldwide, with $400m. But if you blow your budget to $222m - plus maybe another $100m marketing - that's not great.

Agree on that - the fit still looks weirdly wrong, more like pyjamas than the kind of muscle suit or Kevlar armour we've seen in recent flicks. I can get over that, though. Guilty as charged. Gunn has identified an audience, and it's clearly people who fell in love with the Donner/Reeve/Kidder/Hackman films. Everything about that trailer screams homage to the OG version, including the fonts. I'm unashamedly good with that bit. Taking the feel of the originals and making something new... is that achievable? What worries me - and there is a BIG worry here - is another of Gunn's predilections... ...stuffing all his favourite things into a flick. More isn't always more. Krypto? Yes please. He's clearly a very good boy ohyesheisWHOISSUCHAGOODBOYYESHEIS. Luthor? It's a classic, and Nic Hoult should rock this. Hawkgirl? Oookay. Sidekicks are good. ONE sidekick is enough. But then there's also Guy Gardner. Aside from inflicting the worst haircut in comic book history on his mate Nathan Fillion, which is entirely understandable, why is he here? And then there's Simon Stagg too? Mister Terrific? Metamorpho? Kelex? Knockoff Godzilla (or possibly Metamorpho cosplaying as him)? The Aquabats' Floating Eyeball OF DEATH? (or something equally eeeeevil) All this and actual world events like wars, earthquakes and such too. And that's before we get to the as yet unseen Really Big Bad, The Engineer. Then on top of all that, booking out time to tell the story of Clark's human side and struggles, in a world that no longer wants heroes. Do all of these things and people fit into a cogent, coherent 120 minutes of screen time, and get the arcs they deserve? There's almost enough for three flicks in here. Hmm. Still positive. But it's gonna be a juggling act and a half.

Think I may have touched a nerve. I like Hans' stuff, don't get me wrong. (Gladiator's Now We Are Free is what I think of when I think of Hans' most iconic works rather than Man Of Steel, or No Time For Caution from Interstellar.) But the thing with Williams. That simple sequence of notes... it's like the critic in Ratatouille. G, GCG G, ^C G C. That's all you need to see a guy in blue with a red cape, and be in the ABC on Prince Of Wales Road with dodgy, filthy squeaky velour seats and your brother hogging a bucket of popcorn.

So James Gunn has released a teaser for tomorrow’s actual teaser. And if there’s a reason I’m just a tiny bit happy about it - other than Metropolis looking GOOD… …it’s the music. It’s just very gently hummed and ethereal, but that’s John Williams. Just that handful of notes at the end. I mean, I’m okay with Zimmer, but the five-year-old in me that first believed a man could fly accepts no substitutes. And if Gunn can update the Donner-era vibe to 2024… we good.

Does the name "Fast & Furious" ring a bell? (Well, definitely the later ones.) Or for an example that's a bit of a classic, how about the OG Italian Job? (And just out of interest: how would the nerds on this board solve the Coach Problem? Any great ideas?)

Ran across this on the interweb today... https://www.vulture.com/article/kraven-the-hunters-box-office-failure-superhero-fatigue.html Tired of cape flicks? No. Tired of Sony pumping out franchise placeholders? Absolutely.

FYI: Hayley Atwell will also appear again as Peggy Carter in Doomsday, which is nice after her last MCU incarnation… got cut a bit short. 😬 No clue if this is regular Peg, Captain Carter, Director Carter, Evil Mirror Peg or yet another variant.

FYI, Red One dropped on Amazon early (which is going to hack off a number of distributors, as it's still in cinemas in the UK). And it's... alright. The Rock does Rock stuff. Chris Evans does sleazy-Evans stuff, with a moha pronaunced Bahstonian than usual. Lucy Liu does Lucy Liu stuff. None of the leads seem to have any particular heart or relish in doing their stuff, but it gets done. The plot has two neat twists, a couple of genuinely creepy moments, half a dozen decent jokes, and an array of detail about the workings of the North Pole. But runs pretty much as you'd expect other than that. If there are standouts, it's the bad guys tucking into their parts and quite a chunk of the scenery: Kiernan Shipka as Gryla the Snow witch, and her (ex-)partner in punishment, Kristofer Hivju (GoT's Tormund) under half a ton of latex. Plus it may not be JK Simmons' first ride around the world as the Big Guy, but he delivers his bits with genuine warmth and affection. And, incidentally, non-CGI muscles. So, it's not... bad. It's a perfectly watchable distraction for the kids or while you're wrapping presents, and it was free with Prime. But audiences need and expect more to get to the 'plex these days, and average does not cut the Christmas cake.