Hello,
I didn't make it to the Edinburgh Interactive shinding Geeky Tom did, but I WAS up there for the weekend-long liver damaging shenanigans of the TV Festival. Mighty good fun it was too - best thing I heard all weekend was a talk on the future of telly owing to the rise and inexorable rise of digitisation (I think he means any non-linear platform there, so web and mobile etc) by new media guru Clay Shirky. That's a link to his site - not had a chance to look on it yet, so no idea if any good but his talk very much was.

The other good sessions were ones by Tim 'Heroes' Kring, where he recounted how and why he first got into writing for TV (first gig was an ep of Knightrider, and when he got his cheque he was so stunned at how much it was for, he decided he had to do this for a living). As for the next instalment of Heroes, the volumes will be 'Villains' and then 'Fugitives' - lots already on the net about so I will refrain from going on about here. There was a cool clip reel with a shot of Sylar opening up Claire's head to reveal a whole mess of gooey brains - grossly hilarious, as she says 'are you going to eat my brains' and he says 'Claire.... that's disgusting...'. Cue squelching noises. Fab! Stephen Moffett was also ace, refused entirely to be drawn on any speculation about David Tennant's future as the Doctor but very entertaining nonetheless.

In film terms - have seen both Pineapple Express - stoner action comedy with James Franco and Seth Rogen as well as Tropic Thunder.


The former was a real laugh in the first half - Franco is superb as the laid back pot dealer who's breadth and depth of knowledge regarding weed is highly impressive and Rogen is endearing and watchable as the straight man. The scene in the woods and the car chase scene are frickin hilarious. Danny McBride also deserves a proper mention as the chicken shit friend/ fellow dealer who takes an unholy beating. My main issue with the film is its descent in the last third into full on violent action thriller. Not that some of it isn't amusing, but it's where and when the laughs become a little thinner on the ground. That all said, it's still bloody (very bloody in fact) funny so go watch it. Out mid Sept I believe.

You should also make it a point to check out the Ben Stiller-helmed Tropic Thunder. I don't want to say too much, partly as I'm loathe to spoil anything, partly as I have shit to get done before the end of today, but it's very very good. Not flawless (Jack Black's character - where's the satire? Ben Stiller - another of the same kind of dumbass vain morons?!) but those two get some laughs, and Robert Downey Jr's performance as a blacked up method actor is greatness indeed, perfectly offset by Brandon T Jackson's reality checking straight man. I really liked Jay Baruchel as well (Knocked Up) - very sweet. Also out I think later in Sept.

So a good month for movies, particularly if you choose to ignore another Guy Ritchie film. Which I will. Let's be honest, even if his new one (RocknRolla) is brilliant, after Revolver, who in their right minds would subject themselves to more from him? Naturally, this is where I'm wrong and it's a masterpiece, but I don't care - I've got Mad Men and The Wire to occupy my eyes and ears...

I thought I would follow up Crab's piece on Noah's Island. So I YouTubed it (is that a verb now?) and discover the above piece of video.

Wow, just wow. There are SO many similarities which I won't point out because you have eyes and you have undoubtedly seen them yourself.

However I want to take this one step further. Lost is renowned for hinting at books and pieces of writing that link in to the themes of the show.

So Damon Lindelof, yes you Damon, we have met before and I would like to follow up that friendship by imploring you to insert this in to one of the upcoming seasons of Lost. Come on, just put it in one Episode! Have it playing on a TV in the background. Maybe have a video of it laying around in one of the Darmah stations.

I will leave its insertion up to you guys.

Lets make the internet laugh, I know I would if I spotted it playing in the background.

If any fans of Lost are reading this, please spread the word and make this happen, because I'm lazy and I can't be bothered to do it myself.

and yes I know the name of the Campaign needs a little work. Feel free to suggest a better one.

I was lucky enough to be invited along to the Edinburgh Interactive Festival over the weekend. It’s split up in to two areas; the free section and the not so free section for special super cool industry people.

The free part (which I recommend everyone going to next year because it was brilliant) played to host to rather cool competition called Dare ProtoPlay.

Hey look here is a flier...



There were loads of great games created by teams of students from a variety of different universities. And do you know what? There was some pretty amazing games on show.

Here’s one now:



A katamari clone, but a very stylish one none the less, and considering it has been made by a bunch of students you can see that these guys can only get better at what they do, imagine that!

I will post up some more stuff on the festival when I have more time as I saw a working copy of Little Big Planet which blew me away. Also I want to show you some more of the Dare ProtoPlay entries because they where pretty amazing.