Ooooh! Great licence Universal!

The film studio Universal have licensed 4 games from Hasbro to make into movies. They include Monopoly and Battleships.

Monopoly. And. Battleships.

They have licensed them to make them into movies..

Seriously. This isn't a joke. They've paid Hasbro money for the licences.

Some of you probably remember the 80s movie Clue, which was based on Cluedo. Now, the thing about Cluedo was that the game revolves around a murder mystery and murder mysteries are a well understood genre of film. And it was funny. And quite clever. I liked it.

How on earth do you make a movie out of Monopoly? You have a little dog and an iron running around a city buying streets and building hotels? Hours of tedium after one player gets a bit ahead of everyone else and very, very slowly drains money and streets from their rival. They'll have stupid characters named stuff like Mr Iron won't they. Or they'll have a guy in a top hat, and a guy with a sports car and a woman who likes ironing. Maybe they'll employ Jeremy Irons. Or Snoop Dogg.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH.


Will the movie cause families to destroy each other like the real game?

And Battleships? Ok so war movies, and sea war movies are a well known genre but what can the game licence bring to the film? I can't think of anything. The only good sea based war movies were made well over 30 years ago when the WWII footage they cut in with the real footage didn't look old and out of place. Look at Pearl Harbour, millions spent on shit CGI and a rubbish movie.

Hasbro must be laughing all the way to the bank.

State of the Robot

In case you didn't notice, I love robots. I love the very concept of robots. I love vacuuming robots. I love car building robots. I even love the stupid robot that came with the original nintendo. Gyroscope or something like that. How the fuck am I supposed to remember? That was 20 years and a whole lot of beer ago. Anyway, how could you not love robots? Servents who don't care about being servants and will do whatever they're programmed to do, sounds like heaven and/or the porno I watched last night.

According to this article I'll have the chance to make that love physical soon, or about 400 years. Depending on who you believe. Clearly, anyone who knows anything about mankind (as I do as one of the base members of the group) already knew that Sexbots were always the logical conclusion to this research path. Let's try and work on that 400 timeframe though, robot nerds. You dorks need Sexbots more than the rest of society and I don't think you want to wait 400 years to get some.

Also of note, this article isn't just about banging robots, that's just the part that got my attention. It also gives quick rundown on the state of robotics in the world like cooking robots, nipple-ous robots, and good old robot dogs. Hmmm, nipples, cooking, and bitches...sounds like women are about to be replaced.

ARGH! Stupid government putting our curries in danger!

According to the BBC Home Office restrictions on "unskilled" workers from outside the EU is causing severe staff shortages in UK curry restaurants. They are putting our national dish at risk!

How on earth can anyone who's capable of creating a huge amount of curry every night be considered an unskilled worker? I'd like to see the Home Office minister do it. And as for the idea of getting Eastern Europeans from new EU countries to work in the industry... what are they idiots? It's fine for front of house, but not for cooking. Hasn't anyone making these decisions had a curry in Eastern Europe? It's the most disappointing thing ever, well, possibly the most disappointing thing other than the England Football team at a World Cup.

It's a tragedy.

Want to live a long time?

Great news for us lazy people! If we want a long life, we just have to start exercising in our 70s! See this article for details.

Of course, that's assuming the beer and fast food don't kill us long before we hit 70...

I love you supermarket!

This is one of those old BBC stories that sometimes bubbles to the top of the "Most Read" list, but for once it's a story I hadn't seen the first time around.

Sometimes it does pay to make a bit of an effort with things. Like, for instance, if you were going to have a tattoo, which is a fairly permanent body decoration, it's probably a good idea to check exactly what you are going to get.

I would say that it's generally a bad idea for a teenager to get a tattoo of their boy/girlfriend's name. Most teenage relationships don't last long. If you are going to get it done, maybe in a nice Chinese format, then it could be worth spending some time getting it properly translated. So you don't end up having Supermarket tattooed on your stomach.



On the plus side, I think this girl is having a Buy One Get One Free sale this week, she's got wide aisles, disabled access, her eggs are all free range and you won't believe how cheap her clothes are. Designer names at supermarket places. Every little helps.

Have Your Say

My girlfriend is regularly infuriated by the comments in the BBC News Have Your Say segment. I tend to avoid it when possible, to avoid being annnoyed, but I've been spending a lot of time over the last couple of days reading this excellent blog, "If you like it so much why don't you go live there" which is frankly hilarious. One of the funniest things I've read on the internet for a long time.

Flash Element TD 2

Right, so I haven't been blogging, because I've been playing games again. The latest offering from the Casual Collective is Flash Element TD 2. We've mentioned these boys a couple of times here and here, but they keep coming up with the goods.

My current record is over 195,000 on the first map. To put that in context, I'm in the top 100 scores for a game that's had over 1.5 million plays. Beat me if you can.