Northern Exposure

In Bochum again. Leeds was a nice big little city. It reminded me in many ways of Tampere, where I studied. Working class background and a river flowing through the city, for example. I should thank our hosts for their hospitality, and I will. Thank you, Terry and Rachel.

The high point of the trip was a surprise visit to Hadfield. The TV series "The League of Gentlemen" was filmed there. We even saw the sign saying "Welcome to ROYSTON VASEY - You'll never leave!" in a pub. We didn't stay, though. Maybe Virpi will post the picture, too.

From the website:
"Royston Vasey is an amalgam of all horrible little northern towns that we knew from growing up in that region. It is actually a place called Hadfield in Derbyshire." - Steve Pemberton

I managed to catch two episodes of "Human Remains". The characters in the mockumentaries were funny in an embarrassing way. They seemed extremely English. Highly recommended!

Not Too Super

On Tuesday we went to see "Superman Returns". I might have already mentioned that there is not too much choice when it comes to movies. Almost all movies are always presented dubbed in German and there are only two theatres nearby that play original versions. This week it was the ultimate superhero movie.

All it gave me was a superdepression. How could a movie with Kevin Spacey lack all spirit and sense? There was nothing in it. The dialogue was extremely clichéd to begin with but they maximized the effect when they reused it. The Superman doesn't much speak, maybe it would have been funny to have him mutter to himself, but now the viewer is left with long, silent sequences of uncredible flying and no idea as to what is going through Superman's head. And when he opened his mouth to utter some platitude, I started thinking that maybe Superman is a little bit retarded. Perhaps all that high-speed flying has made him slow in the head.

One scene I remember. Lois Lane has gone unconscious in a life threatening situation in a ship. She wakes up in an airplane and asks "What happened?" The pilot responds "Superman." The next thing the woman says is "We have to go back!" What kind of explanation is "Superman." and how can she know what to do? This scene made absolutely no sense, however much I wanted to believe in it.

Another scene: Lois wanders into the dressing room of Lex Luthor and - suspenseful music intensifies - discovers - (wait for it...) - really scary music now! - TOUPEES! How can anybody be scared by hairpieces? Was it a reference to the deceitfulness of the bald villain? If it was, how would you interpret the secret identity of the hero? Isn't he deceiving people, too?

This movie gets ALL THUMBS DOWN from me. Avoid this supercrap if you can.


I hope reading the comic "The Death of Superman" will cheer me up.

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For the next seven days, I'll be in Leeds to get acquinted with a few Loiners. (Natives of Leeds are called Loiners. Don't ask me why.)

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Suomeksi: Välttäkää "Supermanin paalu"-elokuvaa. Olen Leedsissä seuraavan viikon.

Qualibears

Shame on me being so lazy with this blog... Just to let everyone know I'm still around, here are some teddybear photos from the Doll and Toy Museum of Vianden, Luxembourg. Enjoy (I did)!

Rock ON!

Yesterday I received the final confirmation that Guitar Hero is an excellent game. Sascha and Katrin came over and it was clear that the fact that Sascha has played the guitar before helped him immensely. He didn't have to go through the easy difficulty level, it was far too easy for him. If a game imitates reality so well that practice in reality is an advantage in the game, the game is well made! The best car racing games have been the ones where the fathers have beaten their under-age boys, only because they have experience in driving a car.

The difficulty levels are well set in Guitar Hero. Katrin, who was playing guitar for the first time, quickly learned to master songs in the easy difficulty level. Not without fail, but neither has anybody else been able to play a perfect song. As Katrin entertained the audience with "confident sets", Sascha collected enough money to buy a white Gibson guitar, similar to the one James Hetfield used to play.

I can hardly wait when Spillaz and Katrin und die Welle step on the stage the next time!

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In the movies we saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Entertaining, a bit long, but never dull. Once again there was a scene following the credits and some people missed it. The same thing happened with X-Men 3, where we were the only ones to stay past credits. I like to listen to the music, and then I'm happily surprised when a scene appears. It's not often it happens but it is worth it. I like my habit.

And the winner is...

July 2006 ended with a game-filled evening with a couple of friends. Laurent and Julien wanted to protect the honour of France against Finland but unfortunately failed miserably.

The first game on the list was Mölkky, a traditional Finnish game. I won six out the nine games played.

Next the franco-germanic guys were certain of their victory. The game was Petanque, a traditional French game. The rounds were very close, but as I managed to twice win a round with all three balls closest to the target, I beat the others 13-10-10.

After a buffet dinner at Spitz, we moved indoors and played a game of the Settlers of Catan. After a couple of hours I managed to finally build my harbour (which I never used) and the farm, which would have produced massive amounts of material had it been built twenty rounds earlier. I made a few cities, stole the longest road card back and bought with luck the tenth point from the pile of Progress cards and the game was over. I had just beat Julien by one round, probably.

Next time we'll play guitar with Guitar Hero! I better go practice...