Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Brute Passes On

Lt. Gen. Victor "Brute" Krulak died Monday at the Wesley Palms Retirement Community in San Diego, he was a decorated veteran of World War II and the Korean War and a Marine legend, he was 95.

During World War II on the island of Choiseul, Krulak led his outnumbered battalion during an eight-day raid on Japanese forces, diverting the enemy’s attention from the U.S. invasion of Bougainville. Krulak’s troops destroyed hundreds of tons of supplies, burning both camps and landing barges. He was wounded on Oct. 13, 1943, and later received the Navy Cross for heroism along with the Purple Heart.

At age 43 he became the youngest brigadier general in Marine Corps history up to that time. Krulak later commanded about 100,000 Marines in the Pacific from 1964 to 1968 — a span that saw the United States dramatically increase buildup in Vietnam. Before assuming command of Fleet Marine Force Pacific, he served as principal adviser on counterinsurgency warfare to then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the joint chiefs of staff.

After retirement, he often criticized the government’s handling of the Vietnam War. He wrote that the war could have been won only if the Vietnamese had been protected and befriended and if enemy supplies from North Vietnam were cut off. Krulak once summed up the U.S. dilemma in Vietnam by saying, “It has no front lines. The battlefield is in the minds of 16 or 17 million people.”

Following retirement, he worked for Copley Newspapers, serving at various times as director of editorial and news policy and news media president of Copley News Service. He retired as vice president of The Copley Press Inc. in 1977 and contributed columns on international affairs and military matters for Copley News Service. He also wrote the book First to Fight, an insider’s view of the Marine Corps.

His son General Charles Krulak served as commandant of the Marine Cops from 1995 to 1999.

Source AP

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas

Just a quick note to wish all who read this a very Merry Christmas. Especially to all the troops overseas sacrificing their time with their families to bring safety, freedom and security to the world.

Merry Christmas.
Lt. Colonel "Whopper" Creedon, UNETIDA

2IGTV Episode 63

It's Christmas in the world of 2IGTV and this is not lost on us as we discuss Star Wars snow speeders, gifts, the latest technological advancements in the world of 3D, the health of Apple and Steve Jobs, the state of the games industry in the economic crisis and the shuffling of the late night talk show hosts.

We talk Knight Rider, TR2N, Judge Dredd, Buck Rogers, The Star Wars musical, Shatner's Raw Nerve, Cocaine, Roger Ebert and Bitches!!!

All this and More here.

Friday, December 19, 2008

The First Lady Of Star Trek Has Passed

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, wife of the late Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek has died of leukemia aged 76.

She was also one of the most famous guest actors on many of the Star Trek series. She had been involved with Star Trek from it's very beginning playing the mysterious Number One, first officer of the USS Enterprise under Captain Pike in the unaired pilot "The Cage". Later she had a recurring role as Nurse Christine Chapel in the 3 year run of the original Star Trek series and the character later became a doctor for the migration to the Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

For the 24th century incarnations of Star Trek, Barrett would protray the endeeringly annoying Lwaxana Troi, mother of Enterprise-D councellor Deanna Troi. But perhaps she more famously provided the federation computer voice for the original Star Trek Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager as well as a number of episodes of Enterprise and some of the Star Trek movies.

She was a formidible woman; following Gene's death she took the reigns of two of his projects, Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda and brought them to fruition. She was very much a part of the Fan community for Star Trek and Sci-Fi in general and made countless convention appearences up to the point of her illness. I'm glad to say that I was able to meet her in person in Dublin at a Star Trek convention in 1995[?].

On December 9th 2008, Roddenberry Productions announced that Barrett would be providing the voice of the ship's computer once again, for the new Star Trek in 2009. It is not clear, however, whether she had already recorded the voiceover at the time of the announcement, or had been scheduled to do so. Nevertheless, her greatest legacy is that her voice is now heard all over the world every day in the from of the Federation computer voice, as episodes of the Star Trek shows she voiced are constantly rerun.

Rest in peace.

Barrett's Memory Alpha entry.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Robert Carlyle to head Stargate: Universe

Dispelling most of the internet fueled rumours about him being the next Dr. Who; BAFTA award- winning actor Robert Carlyle OBE will be playing a lead role in a popular long running sci-fi series but it won't be in the UK - it'll be over in Canada where they will be filming Stargate: Universe!

Carlyle will play Dr. David Rush on the new Stargate: Universe an "edgier and younger in tone" series than the two previous incarnations, "SGU follows a band of soldiers, scientists and civilians, who must fend for themselves as they are forced through a Stargate when their hidden base comes under attack. The desperate survivors emerge aboard an ancient ship missing in the far reaches of space. As they fight to survive, Dr. Rush (Carlyle) works to unlock the mysteries of the ship and return the group home, but evidence of his ulterior motives soon arises." according to the MGM press release.

Many Stargate fans were worried that according to the original casting call, only the series' military commander, a Colonel Everett Young would be older than 25 and the remainder of the cast are in their early 20's. Carlyle is obviously not the colonel however so there'll be at least two characters who'll have some idea what they're doing.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Dumbass Iraqi Journalist Flings Shoes At Bush

The training that I personally gave President George W. Bush to dodge missiles such as knives or eggs etc. paid off today when some dumbass Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at him during a press conference. The conference, part of the outgoing president's secret tour of Iraq was being held with with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to mark the signing of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement.

Bush had been finishing his remarks in which he said the security agreement was made possible by the U.S. surge of troops earlier this year, when the journalist, one Muthathar al Zaidi pulled off his shoes and hurled them at the president shouting "This is a goodbye kiss, you dog"*. Bush dodged the shoes and was not struck, mostly because of the comprehensive training I gave him in 2005 after watching the Ben Stiller movie Dodgeball, where I emulated the training given by Patches O'Houlihan, a character in the movie. Bodyguards quickly wrestled Zaidi to the floor and hauled him, kicking and screaming, from the room.

I must say that I'm extremely disappointed that the man didn't receive two 9mm's into his skull and instead was merely "subdued" before being carted off - but perhaps he will have an accident in custody. If this is the gratitude that people show for being liberated from tyranny - Obama may have the right idea to begin getting out of there and letting God sort 'em out. Anyway, while I can take credit for his Jedi-like reflexes, I can't take credit for Bush's razor sharp wit - "All I can report," he joked of the incident, "is a size 10."


*Different news sites are all reporting variations of what the moron was shouting as he threw the shoes

Source: Youtube,FoxNews, MSNBC, AP

Thursday, December 11, 2008

World In Conflict - Full Review

It was back here in April '07 when I mentioned that I may be picking up an RTS (Real-Time-Strategy) game; A genre with which I've had little time for in the past, but World In Conflict secured my custom for these main reasons:
1. - It would dispense with the usual boring mechanic of mining for gold, ore, oil or whatever such raw material was required to build your war machine and replace it with a point system that allowed you do air-drop units into your battle zone and begin the fight immediately.
2. - The game would be one of the first to utilise Direct-X10, the Windows Vista API, the next evolution in graphics.
3. - The story would be crafted with the aid of Tom Clancy collaborator Larry Bond which may perhaps explain the games similarity with Red Storm Rising which he co-wrote.
4. - Alec Baldwin himself would be the narrator of that story between the battle sequences.
Thankfully, all of that and more were part of this stunning game.

Picture a world where in 1989 the Soviet Union is collapsing, but instead of what happened in our reality- the hard-line commies instead quash glasnost and perestroika and invade Europe, drawing US forces there and launching a daring attack on the mainland United States. Remember Red Dawn?

In a nutshell: World in Conflict plays out like a Bay-directed, Clancy-penned hybrid of an RTS game. There's no base-building; Instead you get a pool of "reinforcement points" to create a customised force from. When you loose a unit, the point cost of that unit counts back into your point pool and can be used again to summon reinforcements to the field. As the point pool isn't huge, you need to be pretty accurate in which units you bring out because most of the time you force will consist of between a few to a dozen units. The result of such a dynamic resource and strategic model is an RTS that plays far differently than any other sample of the genre.

During the course of the game you're given command of various ground and air units from Bradley IFVs to Apache gunships. You play a company-grade Army officer and so are not laden down with the usual several dozen units you get in other RTSs. As with other RTS' you're not in command of every unit on your side on the battlefield. No, in this you have a small mobile team capable of achieving your objectives swiftly and concisely as part of a larger force that you must support and defend and they will do the same to you, much as you do in FPS form in the Call Of Duty games. You also have power at most stages of the game to direct different forms of artillery fire from daisy cutters to bunker busters and of course the final solution: The Tactical Nuke! - but I wish there could have been more of them to use.

A major issue with trying to weld a story to an RTS is that you basically have a whole load of disposable units that will most likely not survive from the start to the end of the level [not the way I play anyway]. Massive Entertainment dealt with this challenge by disregarding the implementation of "hero" units and presenting the narrative through the interactions of four different US Army officers. The tough abrasive no-nonsense Colonel Sawyer, pulled out of retirement to command the resistance against the Soviets and his three primary commanders. Captain Webb in support, tank commander Captain Bannon and the player's alter-ego Lieutenant Parker. Each has an interesting character arc that weaves its way through the different missions and is detailed with well-written dialogue. In addition to the game engine and FMV cut-scenes; Alec Baldwin narrates the game from your point of view. Each level transition is told through a series of majestically painted stills of soldiers in the conflict with dialog giving us a glimpse of what they are thinking and feeling as war rages on. It's a very effective way of telling the story and certainly adds flavour to an already rich storyline.

The game interface for World in Conflict is smaller than that of most other examples of the genre. The bottom middle contains a graphical representation of your current units and their status, the top right hand corner contains the reinforcement widget. A mini map is in the bottom left hand corner, and on the bottom right hand corner: the special abilities buttons (including unit formation). Overall, the reduced interface gives players a larger view of the battlefield, allowing greater micromanagment and taking advantage of the game's magnificent visuals.

The game's engine is incredible, you can zoom right into each unit and see an incredible level of detail right down to the model of assault rifle one of your soldiers is carrying, or zoom outwards to see the whole battlefield. As mentioned previously, WIC was one of the first games to utalise DX10 and Windows Vista. Users on this platform will have a much higher graphical presentation including "god rays", cloud shadows and soft particles. However I'm told the engine still looks magnificent on DX9, but once you experience it on DX10 you know that the future of gaming at this level is certainly bright. DX10 provides only cosmetic enhancements over it's predecessor, WIC still features deformable terrain in the form of buildings and foliage that are destroyable, dual-core multithreading and Havoc physics. The only technical let down was the omission of 3D sound due to the game being completed at the height of the Windows Vista sound debacle; but the game still has awesome sounds with great filtering.

Final Verdict: Easily the best experience of a Real Time Strategy game I've had since WarCraft 2.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****1/2


Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Hornet Down ***Updated***

An F/A-18D Hornet preparing to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif. crashed in a densely populated San Diego neighborhood Monday, killing two three four people on the ground and destroying two houses.

There was little sign of the plane in the smoky ruins, but a piece of cockpit sat on the roof of one home. A Navy bomb disposal truck was at the site, and Marines were talking with police. Authorities told observers to leave because the smoke was toxic.

The Marine Aviator, who ejected safely and ended up hanging by his parachute from a tree in a canyon beneath the neighborhood, was in stable condition at a Navy hospital, said 1st Lt. Katheryn Putnam, a Miramar spokeswoman. "He had been returning from training on the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast. Investigators will review information from a flight data recorder. There was no indication the pilot was using alcohol or drugs."

The exact cause of the crash is not yet known, but Steve Diamond, a former military instructor who witnessed the crash, said the downed pilot told him the plane suffered a mechanical problem. "The pilot was flying quite low in the moments before he ejected," Diamond said.

The Navy recently inspected hundreds of F/A-18 Hornets, built by Boeing Co., after discovering "fatigue cracks" on more than a dozen of them. The inspections looked for cracks in a hinge that connects the aileron — a flap that helps stabilize the jet in flight — to the wing. The Navy announced last month it had grounded 10 of the $57 million fighters and placed flight restrictions on 20 more until repairs could be made.

[Left] The distinctive markings of an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet from the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101 (VMFAT-101) the unit from which the crashed plane was part of.

Source: FoxNews, AP, Sky News

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Transporter 3

Jason Statham returns to our screens (after a shaky appearance as a driver in Death Race) as a driver of a different sort and a somewhat more familiar role in his third outing as the rule-confined loner Frank Martin in Transporter 3.

It's not made abundantly clear if this time Frank is fully or semi-retired, but nevertheless he's forced by a big bad-guy boss-man Johnson (Prison Break's Robert Knepper) to go on a mission to deliver a 'package'. This time he's rigged with a magnetic explosive which will detonate- killing him if he wanders too far away from his beloved Audi. He's also got a passenger in the form of a sweet piece of fluff called Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) a freckled, red-headed Ukrainian who is annoying as she is sexy.

The plot to this is beyond ridiculous, even for a Transporter movie, hell even for a mindless action movie. What in the nine hells was Luc Besson doing while writing this? Painting? Cooking? Masturbating? Because he certainly didn't seem to have actually written anything - I just don't get why the bad-guy had to do what he does, it's really making life a lot harder for himself. However, the insane unbelievable stunts, Statham's fights and chases as well as Valentina being annoying (or sexy) almost completely distract you from any semblance of story. Still it would have been nice to have some small thread of plot no matter how daft, at least to hold against the most rudimentary of analysis, but this is a basic popcorn flick, so just roll with it I guess.

Cory Yuen choreographs some brilliant fight scenes for director Olivier Megaton and it seems like Frank has to take down more enemies than usual at once, but they're not as good as in previous installments. After seeing him take down a host of thugs with a fire hose before; using his clothing as a weapon this time round seems a little naff. There does seem to be some incredible stunts here and completely over the top even physically impossible which sometimes converts cool to laughable but I'll leave you judge those for yourself.

Final Verdict: 95% of 3rd movies don't turn out to be as good as their predecessors and Transporter 3 is no exception. It has none of the character or spirit of the first movie or the more intense adrenaline action of it's sequel, but that said- it holds it's own as an action movie.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****

Youtube Trailer / Official Site / IMDB Entry / Wikipedia Entry

Friday, December 05, 2008

Bears... In... Spaaaaaaaaaace.....

Four Teddy-Bears were blasted to the edge of space by university boffins at Churchill College in Cambridge. The cuddly toys were attached to a helium balloon and launched 30,000-metres into the atmosphere.

They were fitted out with space suits designed by schoolchildren from the city as the toys braved freezing temperatures. The computer-controlled quartet, who were fitted with a GPS system and camera to track their progress, landed safely just north of Ipswich, Suffolk, following their pioneering flight of just over two hours. Cambridge University said the project was part of an initiative to "engage local schoolchildren in science and engineering".

The project was overseen by the Cambridge University spaceflight team - a student-run society launched two years ago. Ed Moore, one of its 10 members, said: "There can be few more worthwhile things for us to do than to try and provide that spark for the current generation of school kids. We had a fantastic time working with the kids."

Lt. Colonel "Whopper" Creedon of U.N.E.T.I.D.A., denied reports that he had a flight of Harriers scrambled from the RAF station in Wattering to deal with an "imminent danger" at the same time of the bears' flight and was unavailable for comment.

Source: Press Association

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Jones is NSA

General James L. Jones (Ret.), former Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and former Commander of the Unitesd States European Command has be officially nominated by President-Elect Barack Obama as his National Security Adviser.

Jones is currently President and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy. He will bring 40 years of active duty in the Marine Corps and is no stranger to the the executive as he was senior aide to former SECDEF William S. Cohen.

In other appointments; Hilary Clinton was also officially named Secretary of State and as previously presumed, Robert Gates was officially confirmed to remain as SECDEF. Obama said he would be giving Gates and the military a “new mission as soon as I take office: responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control.”

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Origami in Space

You all know of Origami the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. Legend has it that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury.

But what if you could fold something more interesting than a stupid crane? Well Won Park, a bloke in Hawaii has started folding a few more interesting shapes which include ships such as the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars and the Enterprise from Star Trek.

See a whole load of his work here.

Source: TheForce.net

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

SECDEF Gates to be Retained

FOX News is reporting that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will keep the top Pentagon job for at least the first year of the Obama administration.

Gates has very strong support among Democrats and the President Elect's decision to keep him on follows speculation, encouraged before the election by Obama's aides, that Gates would stay on for an interim period. A registered independent, Gates has served various Republican administrations. President Bush nominated Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, when the war in Iraq was descending into chaos and became a political liability for Republicans.

Gates will continue to preside over two U.S. wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that Bush launched as part of the larger war on terror. There are several issues on which Gates and Obama disagree, including missile defense. Gates supports placing a missile defense system in Europe, but Obama already has suggested that he won't sign off on it until the technology has been proven capable.

A formal announcement is expected immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend as part of an unveiling of the new national security team, which is expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state; Gen. Jim Jones as national security adviser, Admiral Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence and Susan Rice as U.S. ambassador to the UN.

Source: FOX News

Sunday, November 23, 2008

2IGTV Epidode 62

In this packed Episode: What effect has the Presidential Election have on The Colonel? Mark has watched the Clone Wars series – but not the movie! We give our opinions on W., Max Payne and Quantum of Solace (beware of spoilers). We let you know what we’re watching (or not watching) on TV now and when to expect 24 and BSG.

In movie news; we have a director and writers for Captain America and maybe Wonder Woman. Snippets for Lethal Weapon 4, Bourne 4, Universal Soldier 3 and a new generation of X-Men? Brett Ratner’s Conan and Beverly Hills Cop 4, and a daft-sounding project from Sylvester Stallone.

Finally, we have an in-depth analysis of the Star Trek trailer.
Git it now at www.2igtv.com and Discuss in our Forums!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Man Tasered At His Father's Funeral - Part 14 in my "Shoot First, Questions Never" series!

Undercover agents at a funeral in North Carolina tried to serve an arrest warrant on the dead man's son — and used a Taser on him.

The incident happened Saturday afternoon as the coffin was being loaded into a hearse. The officers planned to quietly arrest Gladwyn Taft Russ III, but it turned into a scuffle.

42-year-old Russ was charged with communicating threats against his ex-wife who lives in another state. Officials said he failed to turn himself in as promised.

New Hanover County sheriff's chief deputy Ed McMahon said the officers' move backfired in the emotional environment. McMahon said the officers should have waited until after the cemetery service.

Source: Fox News

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

New STAR TREK Trailer online

Those of you with little patience may have already seen some grainy YouTube footage of the new Star Trek trailer badly vidcapped from it's premiere in font of some US prints of Quantum Of Solace.

Today however, just after 18:00 GMT Monday, on the startrekmovie.com website, the full HD enabled trailer was released through the Apple trailer service. If you have 1080p HD resolution I would recommend the 150Mb download of the highest resolution trailer and see images like this and this!

As for the trailer itself? Well I guess it's fair to say that I've not felt this excited about a Star Trek movie since the debut of the trailer for Star Trek First Contact in 1995. The freshness that JJ Abrams seems to have brought to this jaded franchise is quite evident from this phenomena three minute trailer full of quick cuts, action sequences involving the crew, beauty shots of the new Enterprise and frenetic space combat. And we get our first look at Bruce Greenwood as Chris Pike [above]!

It's all so new - yet hauntingly familiar.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/startrek/

Monday, November 17, 2008

Max Payne is like Dashiell Hammett, John Woo & The Punisher

I rate most Video Game movies I see fairly highly. They tend to get less bogged down in acting and plot and focus more on spectacular action scenes and some far fetched stunts. Doom, Hitman, Tomb Raider, BloodRayne and the pinnacle of the genre- Resident Evil are just some of the better examples.

Max Payne is different however. Like the top-notch game it adapts (it's #5 on Colonel Creedon's Top 10 Games Of All Time), Max Payne's story is essential to it and without it, it wouldn't work as either a game or a movie. A missed opportunity here was not to include one of the game's staple elements a "Film Noir" narration delivered by the Max Payne character. As a result the movie suffers from a lack of narration to make sense of some of the more convoluted plot elements.

Payne is probably the most underpowered and all too human character ever to be transported from a game to the silver screen. We are introduced to the character as a depressed loner, who cleans his guns at night and hasn't smiled in in the years following the brutal murder of his wife and child. It's a testament to Mark Wahlberg's grossly underrated acting that he makes the lone cop seem human with a few words and an impressive amount of violence.

We are drawn into Payne's never ending nightmare over the loss of his family and our mood is controlled by the bleakness of the seedy bars, rotten slums and abandoned factories where the investigation leads and it's always snowing at night turning every breath to a cloud of vapour. The city is as cold as Payne's heart now. This is in no small part to the design work of Daniel Dorrance who's worked on a slew of major movies including The Incredible Hulk, Collateral and Braveheart.

Directed by the Irish director of Behind Enemy Lines, John Moore, the other major players in this incredibly stylish drama include Beau Stargate SG-1 Bridges, Olga Quantum Of Solace Kurylenko, Donal Blade Logue, Prison Break's Amaury Nolasco and obligatory black hip-hop star Chris Ludacris Bridges as Lt. Bavura, a true star however is Mila That 70's Show Kunis all grown up now as Mona Sax, a deadly leather clad assassin.

The storyline admittedly veers wildly off track throughout the movie, we have Payne's life which is hell bent on revenge against his family's killers, this crosses over into a series of brutal murder investigations committed against folk with Norse mythology tattoos, Internal Affairs investigation into Payne's involvement with these murders, a super-hot deadly assassin claiming revenge for her equally super-hot murdered sister and of course the obligatory corporate conspiracy. It's a little bit much for a movie based on a video game that didn't have all these threads woven around it in the first place.

The action sequences are a little more than outstanding. The gunplay is a little too sparse considering it's subject matter but once it hits you can feel each impact as if you were suffering from each projectile penetration. The main special effects sequences revolve around the demons being hallucinated by addicts of the Valkyr drug and their appearance injects a contrast of vibrant colour to otherwise washed palette. One disappointment was an under-use of slow motion. I would have been more than happy with an extra 15 minutes or so added to the movie to have all the action scenes in Matrix-esque bullet-time. I know that it's been done to death in the past 10 years, but Max Payne was the first game to feature it and there should have been more.

Final Verdict: A stylish neo-noir action thriller that delivers a troubled violent psychotic loner as good-guy against the freezing cold bleakness of New York and it's fuckin' awesome!

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****1/2

Friday, November 14, 2008

The Mutant Chronicles = Pile of Shit!

The Mutant Chronicles was one of those movies I heard about, saw the trailer and thought "Hey that might be good" [I guess I do that a lot], and even though it has the plot of a Sci-Fi channel TV-Movie you hold out hope that despite it's hokiness-- it may work...

...it doesn't.

This movie is utter garbage and I hope you don't have the misfortune of seeing it. To that end, my review will be laced with spoilers revealing characters, plot points and the ending. You have been warned.

Loosely based on the original Swedish pen & paper tabletop RPG The Mutant Chronicles; the movie is set in 2707 where 4 megacorporations have literally taken over the world and naturally they are all at war. The destructive conflict breaks a seal covering a 700 year old evil machine thingy that turns the dead into zombified mutants. They kill people and bring them to the machine which turns them into more mutants and the process repeats exponentially. Six weeks later the last survivors on Earth are escaping to Mars in Steam-Powered spacecraft (I'm not kidding!) and Brother Samuel, leader of an ancient monastic order asks for men to go on a suicide mission to destroy the machine.

Thomas Jane is an underrated actor, but the shit he was given here wasn't his fault. His two most memorable lines in the movie were "I'm not paid to have faith, I'm paid to fuck things up" and the imaginative "Gimme the fuckin' bomb." John Malkovich shamefully collects a cheque for playing Constantine, one of the Earth leaders completely ineffectually and Ron Pearlman has dropped in my estimation for an awful rendition of the Ar n'Athair (the Our Father prayer in Irish) but there is one dim acting light in the form of the excellent Sean Pertwee who had a noble role and I think gave this his all, sadly it was just too little.

The most annoying aspects of this movie was the way not one, not two, not three... but as many as six characters make a "Noble Sacrifice" with their lives (Jesus! Even one of them did it twice) so as not to slow down the mission or to make sure it continued. I also loved the way water underneath an orbit-reaching rocket ship didn't boil when it took off. Also it appears a victim of the zombie-mutants can be dragged along the ground without food and water for six weeks and survive. But the most annoying thing is near the end your hunch about the movie making a better video game all through watching it was justified when you realise that you've actually played it!!! It's QUAKE 4, seriously near the end-- it becomes Quake 4!

The only redeeming quality of this trash is it's production design, which was phenomenal, from the extraordinary array of costumes to the weapons, vehicles and architecture. A pity it's all wasted in such garbage.

Final Verdict: The Mutant Chronicles is a hopeless waste of money and talent that would have been better served making something else... ...chocolate sauce perhaps.

Colonel Creedon Rating: *

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The "New" Enterprise

We had been waiting for some time but, I can now unveil JJ Abram's re-imagining of the USS Enterprise. To quote a friend of mine: "Groovy!"

While JJ admits he was never a fan of the original Star Trek series, he does have on clear Star Trek cherry-popping moment: the big reveal of the Enterprise during Star Trek: The Motion Picture. "It was the first time I had ever seen that level of attention, that love of detail, given to the tangible, practical reality of the ship." Abrams wanted to take the original Constitution Class of TOS and fuse it to the movie-era refit into a new but still familiar Enterprise. "If you're going to do Star Trek there are many things you cannot change. So if you're going to do the Enterprise, it better look like the Enterprise, because otherwise, what are you doing?"

Source: Civilian Overseer / Popwatch


Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Veteran's Day / Remembrance Day 2008

Today is either Veteran's Day or Remembrance Day depending on your part of the world. I request only that, if you see a veteran today that you thank them for their service. It will mean a lot.

Would anyone like any toast?

I saw a Cylon Toaster for Battlestar Galactica a while back but it's been surpassed.

From the StarWars.com shop...

"If there's something every Sith Lord knows how to do it's make a balanced breakfast. While the Jedi have to live off of Jawa juice and fried nerfsteak, the Dark Lord of the Sith prefers to have a reminder of his fiery Mustafar defeat at his breakfast table. Every morning he burns that moment into a slice of bread with the Darth Vader Toaster. This black, ominous kitchen appliance easily leaves the mark of Vader's helmet in every yummy piece of toast. Slather some Bantha butter on top, or make two pieces for an extra-Sithy BLT. Force power not required to operate toaster."

It'll be available in Jan '09.

Saturday, November 08, 2008

LLLLLLLOSER!

I found a lovely E-Mail in my Inbox tonight that I must share with you...

Cindy and I would like to take a moment to thank you for your loyal and steadfast support during the course of this campaign. Governor Palin, her husband Todd, our families, friends and campaign staff extend our deep appreciation for your tireless dedication, support and friendship.

It is the end of a long journey and your support through the ups and downs has meant more to us than you may ever know. Although we were disappointed with the results, we must move beyond this campaign and work together to get our country moving again.

It is our sincere hope that you will join us in putting our country first and continue to work to keep our nation safe, free and prosperous. We urge you to join us in not just congratulating Senator Obama, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together as a nation.

Whatever our
differences may be, we are all fellow Americans. We are truly blessed to live in this great country and call ourselves Americans, and we will forever be her loyal servants. Today, let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.

With warm gratitude,


Cindy and John McCain


Click here for the transcript of McCain's concession speech.







It's only now that I'm coming to terms with the results of the election. On Wednesday morning I was the butt of many playful jibes and comments from friends at home and internationally. These ranged from printouts of Obama's face being erected in my field of vision to a notice on my chair reading "Reserved for President Obama." My good friend Darth Harrington even made light of an ad for Tescos 50% off sale on McCain Home Fries " -- I guess there's less a demand for them now, eh Creedon?"

But it's emails like this mass mail from Senator McCain, a personal word of comfort from friends and links like this that allow me, the looser, to come to terms with this political defeat. For someone with my military experience, being victorious in all major military campaigns I've been involved in, defeat has been extra hard and has taken it's toll physically and emotionally. Many future plans are now in tatters, so new ones will need to be formulated.

As Jon Stewart mentioned on his Nov. 5th show -- There is life after the Election. So it's time now to suck it up an move on... After we finish pointing the blame finger that is.

Source: John McCain / Fox News / CNN

Friday, November 07, 2008

Shields Up! We're off to Mars (in 30 years)

Researchers at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Universities of York and Strathclyde, and the IST Lisbon may have solved one of the biggest problems facing interplanetary travel — How do we get astronauts there and back without deadly solar radiation frying their DNA and setting off a cascade of cancers and related diseases? The answer is simple: A force field.

"What is this Star Trek crap you're spewing Colonel?" I hear you ask. Well, Bob Bingham of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, England has described their solution, basically a force field that wards off solar particles, generated by a powerful electromagnet onboard a spaceship. "The idea is really like in Star Trek, when Scotty turns on a shield to protect the Starship Enterprise from proton beams," Bingham said. "It's almost identical, really."

Their study, published on Tuesday draws on numerical simulation that is also used by experts in nuclear fusion, in which a hot plasma is kept in place by a powerful magnetic field. This technology gives a far more accurate picture of how individual particles behave when they collide with a two-pole magnetic field. As a result, the researchers have been able to devise a smarter, miniaturised model of magnetic protection rather than the blunderbuss-style field generator that was envisaged in the past. Bingham said the "mini magnetosphere" was being pitched both to the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA.

The idea of generating a force field is several decades old, but all previous versions of it had presumed a huge field hundreds of miles across — and the size of the electromagnet needed would make that impossible. Bingham and his colleagues, who bombarded a small generated field with radiation guns, showed the "bubble" could be a lot smaller, just a few hundred yards in diameter. The device still wouldn't shield the crew from rare, but extremely powerful, interstellar cosmic rays, but Bingham said a dense protective coating applied to a spaceship's hull would take care of that.

A recent NASA study had concluded that manned missions to Mars would be impossible, because the lead shielding to protect astronauts during the 18-month return trip would be too heavy to get into orbit. In December 2006, a solar flare and the stream of charged particles that followed it caused the crews of the International Space Station and space shuttle Discovery to take cover behind heavy equipment — even though, being in low Earth orbit, the ISS is reasonably well protected by the Earth's magnetic field.

This lifts a major doubt clouding the dream of the conquest, er.. exploration of Mars. The effects of the environment of space is one of the greatest challenges facing Mission: Red Planet sketched by the United States and Europe for some 30 years from now. Even the shortest round trip -- the distance between the two planets would take at least 18 months, during which time, the crew would be exposed to sub-atomic particles boosting the risk of cancer and other disorders.

Read the Press Release here.

Source: AFP / STFC / FoxNews

Thursday, November 06, 2008

The next Commander in Chief

In his first speech as victor, to more than 100,000 supporters at Grant Park in his home town of Chicago, President-Elect Barack Obama cataloged the challenges ahead. “The greatest of a lifetime,” he said, “two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face.”

Senator John McCain called his former rival to concede defeat — and the end of his own 10-year quest for the White House. “The American people have spoken, and spoken clearly,” McCain told disappointed supporters in Arizona. McCain remains in the Senate. Governor Sarah Palin, returns to Alaska after a tumultuous debut on the national stage. In a congratulatory call to Obama Tuesday night, President Bush pledged to make a smooth transition and extended an invitation to the Obama family to visit their new home at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

In Washington, the Democratic leaders of Congress celebrated. “It is not a mandate for a party or ideology but a mandate for change,” said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “Tonight the American people have called for a new direction. They have called for change in America.”

Obama, in his speech, invoked the words of Lincoln and seemed to echo John F. Kennedy. “So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder,” he said. He and his running mate, Senator Joe Biden, will take their oaths of office as president and vice president on Jan. 20, 2009. He will move into the Oval Office as leader of a country that is almost certainly in recession, and fighting two long wars, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan.

Obama will begin receiving highly classified briefings from top intelligence officials tomorrow, as the rush of his campaign gives way to intensive preparations to take over as commander in chief and build a Democratic administration. The briefings typically last 45 minutes to an hour, but Obama’s initial one is expected to be longer. Vice President-Elect Biden will also begin receiving briefings this week.

The president’s daily brief that Obama will receive is mostly written by the Central Intelligence Agency and will include the most critical overnight intelligence for the president. They sometimes dig deeply into a specific topic to give the president an in-depth understanding. National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell will launch the intelligence briefings. CIA Intelligence Director Mike Morell will be Obama’s prime contact with the intelligence community throughout the transition.

Obama will have access to vastly more intelligence, including ongoing covert operations, than he was privy to as a senator, said CIA Director Mike Hayden. “Through expanded access, greater than what he had in his briefings as a candidate or as a Senator, he will see the full range of capabilities we deploy for the United States.”

It was not clear at this time when UNETIDA would read the president-elect into it's ongoing operations but it would be assumed to be some point early next week.

Source: AP

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

May the best man win

Ok folks this is it! As Conan O'Brien has been saying last week, this election has been going on for far too long, "It started in 1966," he joked, but it may feel like that to many as it certainly does to me. I can only imagine the countless man hours and millions of dollars in total that have gone into this one day, November 4th 2008.

This election has captured the hearts and minds of billions the world over. All eyes will be on the USA tomorrow, be they friend or foe. No longer is it a question of a black or white candidate, man or woman, experience or inexperience, friendly or grumpy, old or young, war hero or lawyer, Republican or Democrat. It is about the will of the American people to have made an informed decision based on all available information either watching MSNBC or Fox News, listening to Bill Maher or Bill O'Reilly, reading The Huffington Post or even this blog or perhaps simply going with their gut after listening to the candidates themselves, to go fourth and choose the next President of the United States.

Godspeed to all voters.

Please note that it is not my intention to post again until final confirmation and I will not be answering E-mails or phonecalls for at least 24 hours. Thank You.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Is This Bond!? Where's the fun?

Quantum Of Solace, unlike any previous Bond movie is a direct sequel to Casino Royale. The story continues on from not long after the previous movie ends and the action never stops... ...not even to quip.

Casino delivered us a very different Bond movie from what we were used to; a gritty hard-ass Bond without the wealth of experience or improbable far-fetched gadgets of his "predecessors". And it worked. Quantum however, takes that up a notch and turned Bond into a vengeful bastard with a giant chip on his shoulder. Make no mistake Bond is so far removed from the character you know it's like watching Daniel Craig play an older Jason Bourne. Craig's Bond reverts from the Walther P99 to using the Walther PPK not used since Tomorrow Never Dies, but other than this more Bond-esque weapon, he's almost unrecognisable as the character and I'm sorry to say the movie suffers for it.

Now it works on a modern level, to remove Moneypenny and the associated flirting as well as Q with the unrealistic gadgets but in Quantum they piratically lose Bond's devilish smile and almost all semblance of humour - they went a bit to far! Seriously, there are little or no quips, one liners or sexual innuendo from him in this movie and it's a notable absence. It appears they were attempting to recreate the James Bond from Fleming's books than re-energising the movie franchise. If I wanted to experience the book version then I'd read the goddamn book, it's not what I want or expect from a Bond movie.

Craig does deliver an incredible performance and I can't fault it for what it is. Judy Dench as M provides an life-raft for Bond's descent into darkness. But the babes Olga Kurylenko as Camille and Gemma Arterton as Strawberry Fields (and they don't use her full name on screen in a further siphoning of Bond humour), while hot, don't have the star power of any the Bond Girls of the past 10 years. Even the antagonist Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) has no quirk that has been a staple of Bond Villains since Dr. No, unless you count a smarmy arrogance? The Jack White & Alica Keys title song is brilliant when heard against the somewhat muted opening titles with regard to the unimpressive graphics and David Arnold returns with a score to rival his Casino Royale masterwork.

What we do get however, is one of the best action movies of the year hands down. We open with a spectacular break-neck (and unfortunately break-car) Italian highway chase with shooting, crashes and explosions. Then there's a running chase through the sewers and rooftops of Sienna, Italy, an incredible boat-chase in Haiti and then in Bolivia, an aircraft chase! I think you get the picture.

This in an incredible adrenaline rush of a movie with frenetic chases, whiplash inducing fight scenes and glorious explosions but it almost bereft of what is truly Bond; so eager were they to cut away the chaff, they removed too much wheat.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****


Sunday, November 02, 2008

Dirk Benedict for Governor

Dirk Benedict [Face on The A-Team and Starbuck on the original Battlestar Galactica] is apparently following where Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse "The Body" Ventura have been before and is taking a shot at becoming a Governor. The only problem I have with this is the fact he reveals this information while being interviewed in Ireland this week by Podge and Rodge.

On the Podge & Rodge Show, Benedict was explaining how difficult it was to be a conservative in a traditionally liberal profession. Podge asked Benedict if he had any political aspirations himself to which Benedict responded that he'll be running for Governor of Montana and that we'll be hearing about that soon enough.

I can find no other media report confirming this even on the actors own website so I don't know how serious he was. If anyone has more information they might send it my way.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Schwarzenegger pumps iron into McCain's Campaign before McCain goes on SNL!

John McCain has been hitting the state of Ohio hard this week in an effort to shave Obama's lead off in the key battleground state before Tuesday. The Republican's campaign has scheduled more stops there Saturday, and it has put an emphasis on Pennsylvania as well. "Our position in these states is strong and undecided voters continue to have a very favorable impression of our candidate," campaign manager Rich Davis said.

In Columbus, Ohio, the great Arnold Schwarzenegger himself energised a crowd at a McCain rally with a speech that mixed a healthy helping of jokes with praise for the Republican presidential candidate."You look all pumped up. You look ready to elect John McCain president of the United States," Schwarzenegger said.

The Governator, added that "John McCain served longer in a POW camp than his opponent has in the United States Senate. Ladies and gentlemen, I only play an action hero in my movies, but John McCain is a real action hero."

In other news: Aides to Senator McCain said that he will make a detour from battleground states to appear tonight on Saturday Night Live, the late-night comedy show that has been a must-watch for many during the political season, including myself in fact. When McCain hosted SNL in 2002, he mocked Barbra Streisand's political advocacy by performing a medley of her songs.

When Sarah Palin, appeared on the show some weeks ago, it earned its best ratings in 14 years. Former star and head writer Tina Fey, a Palin lookalike, has been at the center of the show's recent parodies of the campaign.

If SNL isn't your thing but you still want some Election related laughs follow this link.

Source: Fox News / New York Times/Eamo

Forget Marx what about Stalin?

Journalists from three major newspapers The Washington Times, The New York Post and the Dallas Morning News have been booted from Barack Obama's campaign plane for the final leg of the presidential race. What links these publications together? They've all endorsed John McCain!

The Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon has reported that the Obama campaign said it didn't have enough seats on the plane, but "I don't think the explanation makes sense to us. We've been traveling since 2007 with him. ... We're a relevant newspaper -- every day we break news. And to suddenly be kicked off the plane for people who haven't covered it as aggressively or thoroughly as we are ... it sort of feels unfair."

"I can only hope that the candidate who describes himself as wanting to unite the nation doesn't have some sort of litmus test for who he decides gets to cover the campaign," Solomon said, making a point that the Obama campaign's decision came just two days after the paper endorsed McCain.

Dallas Morning News Editor Bob Mong said that the "indication" from the Obama campaign was that they were kicked off the plane since they don't represent a national outlet and they don't represent a swing state. He also said said that the McCain campaign recently pulled Morning News staff off the Republican's plane when space became an issue but there was no question that they would be back on McCain's plane again this weekend.

Obama himself has also made a point of attacking Fox News almost daily, even to the point of mentioning them in one of the debates! I'm very disturbed by this aren't you?

Source: Fix News / The Washington Times / The New York Post / Dallas Morning News

Friday, October 31, 2008

Dear Mr. Obama

This has become the most watched Youtube video of the US Presidential Election '08. Listen and understand, but wait until the end...

Practice what you preach? Not Obama!

Senator Barack Obama has lived the American dream that has taken him from nothing to a hairs breadth from White House. But a dark secret looms only a few miles from where the Messianic Democratic presidential candidate studied at Harvard; his Kenyan aunt and uncle, immigrants living in less than modest circumstances in Boston. Zeituni Onyango, an aunt of Obama's, affectionately described in Dreams From My Father, lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public housing estate in South Boston!

Another relative thought to be Obama's long-lost "Uncle Omar" also from his book was beaten by armed robbers while working in a corner shop in the Dorchester area of the city. He was later evicted from his one-bedroom apartment for failing to pay $2k in bills, according to the Boston Housing Court.

The press has repeatedly theatricised Obama's odyssey, but they have not revealed the other side of his family's experience. Just across town from where Obama made history as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, some of his closest blood relatives have confronted the harshness of immigrant life in America.

So why does Obama want to spread the American tax-payers weatlh around, but not his own to assist his own family? Hmmmm....?

Source: FoxNews / TimesOnline