The week is already half over and I haven’t got around to posting what happened from last Friday onwards. It was a long time ago so I forget most of it, but Friday I ended up watching The Illusionist at friends place and eating Fasta Pasta that wasn’t that Fast….a. Diverting for a second, If I were to open a rival fast food pasta place I would call it Fastest Pasta…. Anyway. A new franchise opened up near by so we got some take away, only the person who took the order got it largely wrong. They got the name on the order wrong, forgot to make one of the meals and then after making us wait an additional 20 minutes whilst making it, they couldn’t find us to give to it us our order even though we had sat down right in front of them whilst they made it. When it was ready they took the bag of food outside looking for us, then brought it back inside, then waited 3 minutes before calling out to see if we were there. So the fast pasta took 40 minutes to make. Double the time that it was suppose to take.

Back to the The Illusionist. So now I will put in a page break because it has a couple of spoilers and it will annoy all you google reader folks.

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Not much interesting to say today. Still have to post about the weekend. I’ll get around to it soon. No adventures every night this week though.

Network Ten has just started a show called Friday Night Download. The premise is they play clips from youtube/google while three “well known hosts” (from the Big Brother machine, specifically Friday night games) comment on what they thought of them, whether they are fake or not etc. Its good for Ten. Cheap to produce, no scripts, no writers, just have to pay the three hosts to watch the clips and talk. It also counts towards the number of hours of locally produced content that each station must have to keep their license. (I’d find a link but I’m lazy) A couple of thoughts on this though:

1. Don’t you think its ironic that Ten is advertising they are “streaming shows direct from the US” in a bid to stop people downloading television programs/content from the internet and want you to watch them on TV instead but yet this show made up entirely from downloaded content from the internet?

and

2. Does Ten pay royalties for the use of the clips? Do they share in advertising revenue like youtube is starting to? And what about copyright infringement? I notice this weeks promotion is a clip from a Japanese game show. Do they get permission from the original copyright holders? Surely the game show, produced by another television station in Japan holds the copyright to it? Or do they get around it by considering it “fair use.” I’m no lawyer, but I wonder what would happen if I tried to upload a clip to youtube of the hosts talking over a clip they downloaded from youtube.

Maybe I’ll email them to find out…

Fury is the latest game to come out from Australian developer Auran, which was firstly famous for the game Dark Reign in the late nineties, but more recently for the Trainz series of games. (which still has no mac version) Fury is a MMORPG game. I don’t usually play these types of games but one of my friends help create it so I said I would buy a copy when it came out if he would autograph it for me. The thing I didn’t tell him was that I would tell him what to write when he autographed it. I can’t decide what though. I’m thinking something like:

• You have taught me everything I’ve needed to know.
• With out you, none of this would be possible.
• “Can you make it out to ebay, little e, capital b”
• I owe you $100.

Any suggestions on one of the above or something different?

I figure since I buy a copy as a customer I will be able to get him to change the game. “Hey you know how its a PVP multipayer game? In the patch can you make it more of a single player about collecting rainbows and hugs? That’d be great. It what everyone wants. Thanks.”

At work yesterday someone found an online Mechanical Aptitude Test. It became a bit of a joke with me because some of the guys that are into fixing and restoring cars told me I should have a go at it because I know nothing about this type of thing at all. Typically I embarrass myself by pretending I do, then try and join the conversations by saying helpful things like “Was it a problem with the lack of torque leading to a pressure breakdown?” – Thats all I know about it, torque or pressure and nothing else. Anyway, I took the test I scored 80%, equal highest with another person in the group. My score was still higher higher then the car engine re-builders. The test also highlighted I know nothing about pulleys, so I hope the need to use them doesn’t arise anytime soon.

Was searching for some David Strassman youtube clips the other day and I came across another comedy/ventroloqist by the name of Nina Conti. Very amusing although at the same time, both disturbing and just plain dirty. A couple of clips about a pint glass and controling you, but you have been warned about the content! Unfortunately not many other different clips on youtube and no DVD’s available. Would be interesting to see a show to see what other material she has but looking how out of date the website is, I doubt a tour is happening any time soon.