Hairy Man Shows Internet Findings.

Hey there.
A decent movie needs a snappy title, right? Or at least a memorable one. Zack Snyder is much more likely to be remembered for Watchmen, 300 & Sucker Punch than for Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, I'd wager. So the title is pretty important.

Now almost all movies get released all over the world and it turns out some of the people in foreign lands don't even speak English? Madness. So the flick gets translated, including the title. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.

An example:



An excellent film with a no-nonsense title. Not so in China. No. There it's called 'This Hitman Is Not As Cold As He Thought'.

Yeah. Turns out this is pretty common. In Germany; Airplane became The Unbelievable Trip In A Wacky Aeroplane and, incredibly, China never got to experience The Shawshank Redemption, but instead got the stupefying title 'Excitement 1995'!

Want more? Well check out this list of 50 Funny Movie Translations to see how films can be completely undermined by having their title translated. The one for Sixth Sense is incredible.

One of my personal favourites though: 'Leaving Las Vegas' becoming 'I'm Drunk And You're A Prostitute' in Japan. Hyuk hyuk.

Plinx Quickie.

Hiya.
Just wanted to call your attention to a webcomic series that's just been started by my pal Alex. It's a simple 3-panel type affair and the concept is explained in the title:

Setup, Beat, Puke.



Yup, each comic ends with Alex himself dropping a barf. It may not seem like much on its own, but when you see them all together... well it makes me laugh. And hey! it's not like there isn't a success story out there which uses repeated panels each comic, right?

Oh, also; Alex kindly put up a guest comic created by yours truly. Check that one out Here and click Here for the whole shebang.

Yay! *pukes*

April: A Retrospective.

Hello there.
I didn't get much plinking done in April, perversely this seems to be because I had too much free time. I had a fair bit of time off work and I never really felt like it was the right time to sit down at my computer for a spell. Now things have returned to relative normalcy, I'm going to sum up the last few weeks in bullet point format.

> Running
> Portal 2
> Barbecues
> Thor
> PlayStation-induced Fury

Starting at the top, I did a run! Yes, another one. In Prague this time. It's a beautiful city and I had a great time. The run went OK, better than the last half-marathon anyway. Y'know, the one where I lost consciousness? Here's a victory snap:



Whee! Medals!

Then, a while later; Portal 2 descended from on high to bring me joy unrelenting. Well, not quite unrelenting but I'll get to that later. If you're unfamiliar with Portal 2, here's the trailer:



Having waited for it for so long, I was concerned it wouldn't live up to expectations but I needn't have worried. It's brilliant. If you play games, you've probably played it already or plan to do so soon and if you don't play games... Portal 2 has you covered there too.

It's clever, it's funny and... erm, I'm sure the co-operative mode is really good too... grumble mumble bloody PSN.

What's next? Ah yes, GRILLFESTS. Yeah, it's barbecue season and we kicked things off in sensational style by having one every bank holiday. I couldn't possibly consume any more charred flesh until, well the next barbecue on Monday. I hope you're chowing down similarly.

Another, less videogamey, event I had been anticipating for some time was the release of the movie adaptation of Thor. I love the character and had been watching trailers and looking at screenshots with increasing alarm. I really didn't want the movie to suck, and guess what? It doesn't! It's not any sort of breathtaking step forward for the genre but it was a nice slice of super-powered fun. They still missed a trick in not casting This Guy as the main man though.

AND in case you were wondering if I had totally jettisoned the plinx format for this post, never fear. Here's a surprisingly awesome promo game released on the Marvel website to coincide with the film release: Thor - Bring The Thunder. It's got charming, retro style and is surprisingly deep. Give it a go.

Things can't be uniformly great though. Something had to rock the applecart and tip over the boat. April's sunny skies were darkened not by a thunder god, but by... Sony.

Yeah, you've seen it on the news, the PlayStation Network or PSN is down. STILL. After an absence of over a week, I'm still waiting to play the supposedly excellent co-op mode in Portal 2. It's been infuriating as there aren't many occasions where I actually want to play online, then one comes along and I'm denied that right. I know it's very much a first-world problem but shut up, I want my fancy space toys!

So, to sum up. If April had to be represented by one image, it'd me of me taking a run up before hurling a mythical hammer fashioned from burnt meat through a set of portals right into the face of Sony president Howard Stringer.

It'd be nice if I had the talent to draw that, but I don't. Sorry!

See you next time.