Put a camera on their front door, just to see how often it's NOT him

Oh, Midway. It, like A Bridge Too Far, I love because of the historical event it's about, but...  At least, with Midway I can now see all the problems with the film. A Bridge Too Far needs the DIF crew to take a look at it, as I honestly don't know what's wrong but something clearly is.

I tend to judge a documentary based on subject rather than, perhaps, craft, so have to mention 'In the Realms of the Unreal'. If nothing else it will introduce you to Henry Darger.

Paranoia Agent falls into the "made to look deep but there's nothing there" camp, as admitted by the creators on the commentary. All dialog that would tell you what the fuck was going on was removed, and they started animating with no idea what the ending was. That said, yeah it's a fun show (other shows of this type include Lain and Key the Metal Idol)

Cowboy Bebop is a great show. Many, at the time, said that Firefly was ripping this off. However, the show Firefly is more similar to is the not quite as good Outlaw Star, which actually starts with a mysterious nude girl found in a suitcase. Either an amazing coincidence, or Joss saw that and said, "I can do a western in space with a nude suitcase girl better than this!"

I will toss in the required non-Pixar animated suggestions.

• The Wings of Honnamise- an incredible tale of a nations first attempt at space flight (its beauty and detail all the more amazing because it was created by a bunch of geeks after a fan film got some attention). Watch it subtitled, as the English dub changes two critical lines of dialog

• Voices of a Distant Star- one man on a Mac created this incredibly moving short

• Nausicca of the Vally of the Wind- actually, any Miyazaki film will do, but this is one of his best.

• Watership Down- adaptation of the novel.

• Batman The Animated Series- what can you do when told to make a kids superhero show? This. Also the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam for the same "they turned a toy commercial into THAT?" vibe.

I think it was for Inception, where he said there was no deep meaning behind it, or at least none intentionally put in. In that case I simply found it a fun counterpoint to the talk here, about a film I had no desire to see.

Hell, if you look in the credits of most old movies, you'll find some book or story credited. The difference is, back then they had the decency to change the title and all the characters so you couldn't tell

Friday, Buffalo News critic Jeff Simon gave Battleship three stars, and in today's paper he took a swipe at those bashing the film, and all you young punk internet reviewers in general. Now... I grew up with this reviewer. I started reading his stuff as a pre-teen in the late 70's, when I first discovered the idea of "reviews". He isn't aging well, I must admit, going by a recent trashing of the cartoon Young Justice (both he and his toddle grandson fell asleep to it, which in his mind damned it as thus bad. It is, but that's not the point), but I still have a soft spot for his opinions. It would be interesting to see you guys rip this apart, though

Oh, and, yes, do the t-shirt. You need more I can actually wear to work or around my niece

I came away from Pacific not quite liking it as well. A major problem was, well, it got so gory it became silly. It honestly felt like they had a flying severed limbs plugin and went crazy with it. Maybe it looked "real", haven't been in combat so don't know, but reality can look too silly to be taken seriously.

Also, I was disappointed the show only looked at the land war. I want to see the greatest sea battle ever dramatized, if only to see the Battleship Yamato run away like a bitch!

I used to watch Mr. Dressup, as well as the Buffalo produced weekday morning Rocketship 7 (talk to any famous Canadian from Ontario over 40, and they'll mention the show most likely). Hmm, looking at Wiki, it seems my childhood mind was confused about something I have a memory of Commander Tom taking over from the REAL Commander Dave on Rocketship 7, and being very jarred by it. However, according to Wiki, Rocketship 7 went off the air in 1978 leaving just the afternoon Commander Tom. What I saw most likely was a reassuring sendoff so kids would know what was going on, and that Commander Tom would still be there afternoons. You know, back when local stations still had personality and cared.

Hey, what do you know, MrDudeMan understands Clan Lord perfectly The game was created as a way to test these things, and how players will interact with each other and the game. What will players do, when there are no numbers, no real idea what the mechanics are? Never a huge game, it was, and probably still is, not for everyone. I left because, among other things, it was no longer really enjoyable to play as a character not involved with a Clan (I liked just hooking up with whatever group was getting a hunt together). This was part of the creators intent, to weed out people like me

The online game Clan Lord does this for the most part. I played it years ago, when it was a free Mac-only beta, and for a year or three after they started charging. Created by Delta Tao, the guys who did Spaceward Ho!, it is sort of a social experiment. The player is given only three status bars- health, balance, and spirit, with no numbers to go with them. The higher your balance, the more likely you are to hit things and the harder you are to hit. To increase something, you sign up with a trainer and your experience goes to that trait. It's VERY fun, and with no numbers to worry about (unless you're anal and keep track yourself) it's all a matter of noticing a part of your training not being up to current needs, and working on that. You only have three classes: fighter, healer, and mystic, each with only basic abilities. That said, within that you could do amazing things. There were battles with two hundred players at once, over a hundred visible in your window, doing complicated tactical movements as you fought the enemy. Nothing like having a fighter slowly walking across a field, taking a dozen lightning bolts as healers keep the "rod" alive, while squads of fighters guard the perimeter and fan out to destroy the enemy as the army creeps along...

Hmm, looking at the wiki page I see the game is free again, and there's now windows and linux ports. I may have to give it a try...