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I've just come from the pub, where I got reasonably poleaxed for the first time in about two months.  Christ, I missed the aimless arguements and increasingly irrational sentimentality that only a public house can provide, but have you SEEN the price of a f*cking pint these days?  I'm as insecure about my sexuality as the next man, so I desperately crave the environment for lowering the emotional barriers betwixt men that the pub safely provides, but I'm buggered if I'm paying that much for booze again!
I was in that pub for THREE hours at most, and it cost me thirty quid!  It wasn't a strip joint, either - just a regular bar.
The government are 'talking' about bringing in a smoking ban, a move which is being resisted by the publicans and breweries on the basis that it will kill trade and deter people from going out to pubs.  I've got a f*cking idea for you lads - why don't you stop being such a bunch of money-grubbing bastards and maybe more people will go out to pubs of a night because they CAN ACTUALLY AFFORD IT.
I'm engaging in the systematic genocide of my higher brain functions willingly, the least they can do is make it affordable.

Somebody must have this by now, so come ON.  Review the damn thing already.http://www.math.wisc.edu/~sutton/personal/monkeys.gif">

Anyone got any tips for using a graphics tablet?
I got one as an early birthday pressie, but I'm buggered if I know what to do with it.
It seems to be a more precise way of doing what I normally do with the mouse, but not much else.  That'll be handy enough for the more precision-colouring stuff - and there seems to be the potential for some cross-hatching/burn/dodge textures malarky if I practice (muck about), but can anyone offer any tips or tricks they've picked up?
I genuinely don't have a clue, and need to be able to say I've done something with it in about a week's time or I'll appear either apathetic, or rather ungrateful - but I'm not!  I'm well chuffed, as all the digital art mags are always banging on about them being essential...

I'm just watching this turkey at the minute on the Sci-fi channel, and in my considered opinion it's a load of bollocks.
My dad rates the first one highly, though I've yet to watch it - but this one sucks.  Even I know that guff they were spouting a few minutes ago about tesseracts is technically inaccurate, and I didn't even pass my maths gcse.  I don't think I'll bother with the first one, now.

Utter wank.

I just thought I'd mention this on account of that bloke who did 'Sixth Sense' is making it, and yet again, he's got to make a 'twist ending' movie.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, you understand, but apparantly everyone who's seen it has guessed the twist five minutes into the film, and I guessed it two seconds after hearing the plot.

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The film centers around an eighteenth-century village surrounded by a forest full of monsters that prevent the villagers from leaving.  Except the twist is that it's actually the present, and not the 1800's, and they've been isolated from the rest of the world all that time.
Can anyone on the board tell me if this is for real, or am I being mucked about by my mates?

I was just looking through my old progs, and noticed the Men in Black who, for a time in 1996 and 1997, took over Tharg's place in the comic.  I seem to recall a flirtation with conspiracy-led stories like Vector 13 and Black Light in the wake of X-Files' popularity at the time, and I just wondered if anyone could fill me in on who was editor at the time, and perhaps why they thought this kind of bandwagon jumping was a good idea - especially after the whole Dredd movie/Lawman of the Future thing.  I'm not having a dig - well, not much - but I would like to know the reasoning for what was essentially a rebranding of the comic's sci-fi premise.
I only ask because I missed the majority of the Megazines that featured the complete history of 2000ad, but what I did read was fascinating.  I never realised how often 2000ad came to cancellation...

I wonder who'll be first to review it this week?  One of the subscribers, probably.http://www.savepacifica.net/images/hippo-crit.gif">

I thought I'd chuck in my tuppence on this film, since there seem to be plenty of politically aware types on the board - but I don't think I can genuinely give an objective overview.  Familiar as I was with the majority of Moore's  allegations levelled at the Bush (mk2) presidency, the second half of the movie veered off the usual catalogue of Bush's hijacking of the highest political office in the free world and his ties to Saudi oil families (the Bin Ladens in particular), and instead concentrated on the plight of US marines and their families.  The sight of Lila Lashcomb in tears as she relates the story of her son's death in Iraq isn't one that's going to leave me for some time.  Moore covers the same territory as Bowling For Columbine in his assertion that corporate interests need a frightened populace to encourage them to consume and keep the economy healthy, but quickly moves into other, more emotionally charged territory when he begins to chart the destruction of lower-class American communities (particularly African-Americans)and their exploitation by the ruling class American elite.
Like I say, it's hard to be objective about something that makes you angry in the way this documentary does - the treatment of the freedoms upon which the democratic principles of America were founded and sustained is truely blood-boiling.  I defy anyone to walk away without SOME image sticking in the mind, be it the ridiculous anti-terror propaganda that makes Brass Eye look like a documantary, or the mutilation of charred and blackened American corpses by baying mobs of Iraqis.
One thing I didn't like about Bowling For Columbine was Moore's doorstepping of Charlton Heston.  Held up as the highpoint of the movie, I always thought that verbally outsmarting a man with Parkinson's Disease wasn't the best way to prove a point.  Farenheit 911 doesn't have any such scenes, simply battering you with scene after scene of things that either make you angry or put a lump in the throat - it might be argued that the viewer is being manipulated, but everything the viewer sees is real and demonstrable fact, rather than the half-truths and mud-slinging preferred by the right-wing media Moore has issues with.
About the only really bad thing I can say about the movie is that it'll only end up preaching to the choir.  If you're a really committed conservative/republican type, you're going to have issues with the film and are unlikely to be swayed by the arguements raised, and if you're a liberal type, you'll probably already be familiar with much of the subject matter.  I'd say most boarders will already have made up their minds about whether or not they'll go see this, but if you're wavering on the issue, I can only reccommend it, as it packs more of an emotional punch than anything else you'll watch in the cinema this year.

Unless you're a REALLY big Spider-man fan, obviously.