Reviews
Review: Ondine (2009)
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
Ondie is a modern fairy tale that tells the story of an Irish fisherman whose life is transformed when he catches a beautiful and mysterious woman in his nets. She says her name is Ondine, which means “she came from the sea”. His daughter comes to believe that the woman is a selkie, something like a mermaid. However, like all fairy tales, enchantment and darkness go hand in hand.
Since I saw In Bruges I am always happy to see Coling Farrell (don’t just judge him by Miami Vice). His performance of the somewhat dim witted Irish fisherman is also very good and the mermaid in question is also veeery nice to look at 
(@see Alicja Bachleda) No wonder she got preggas while shooting this film … how romatic!
7.5 / 10 – Slow and touching, a relaxing flick for a sunday evening.
Review: Kirot – The Assassin Next Door
Sunday, September 5th, 2010 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
Olga Kurylenko as an assassin, maybe in a black leather dress and swords as her weapons of choice? If you expect something like this you are completely wrong.
“Kirot” is a drama about brutal sex-traffic Mafia exploitation and a woman trying to get out of the business but she ends up being forced into assassinations by her boss. He is keeping her passport and without it she cannot leave. So she does what she is told to just to be able to get away from this at some point. Doing so she befriends her neighbour, who is a victim to her wife beating husband. Together they comfort themselves and try to cope with the situation – and to find a solution to their problems eventually.
6.0 / 10 – Quite okay but doesn’t really kick off at any time, could have been a lot better.
5 retro games I should have played
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 | Games, Misc, Tech-savvy | 3 Comments
I recently started a list of games that I played for record keeping and nostalgia reasons. Doing so I came across a few games that people used to talk about a lot or that seemed to be important in some way at their time in gaming history.
I tried to pick the top 5 retro games I should have played (High Fidelity anybody?).
1985 Bard’s Tale, The (C64)
I love RPGs (like Eye of the Beholder, Ultima) and I guess The Bard’s Tale series would have let me dive into a great fantasy world that I just missed by a few months of age – at the time I didn’t own a Commodore 64.
1985 Super Mario Bros. (NES)
My fist (non-handheld) Nintendo was a Super Nintendo. I already played Super Mario Land with great enjoyment, and loooved Super Mario World. I missed out on the “original” Super Mario Bros. though (I consider this the original, not the single screen arcade Mario titles).
1986 Metroid (NES)
One of my all time favourite game is Turrican (respectively Turrican 2). Well, this reminds me of Turrican AND I loved the Metroid Prime games on the GameCube.
1985 Elite (C64)
In fact I don’t know much about this one, except that it is some kind of space trading simulation, right? Anyway, one of the first games that everybody talked about and I didn’t have a clue what it was all about, it just seemed to be an unmissable game at the time.
1985 Thexder (PC)
Years after I madly fell in love with Turrican I realised that there used to be a title that reminded my of Turrican. So I guess I would have liked Thexder.
Writing this list I did not realize that almost all games I kinda missed out on were released around 1985. I guess this is due to my increased interests in computers at the time without owning one yet. I got into computing with an Commodore Amiga 500 in 1986 and into “consoling” with a Super Nintendo aka Super Famicon in 1992 (apart from the original GameBoy in 1989).
BTW: This is NOT me, just a fun 80′s picture. I would have never put up a Duck Tales poster (the rest is pretty close 
)
Getting out of bed the right way
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 | Gadgets, Games, Misc | No Comments
I think I kinda found the perfect wake up sound – the Monkey Island Theme!
Apart from being a brilliant computer game’s tune it starts with a dingelingding that draws your attention (thus “wake up”) but gives you enough time to hit snooze or get up before the song really kicks in.
From a psychological point of view it is a also a good start into the day because it subconsciously reminds me of childhood memories that draw a faint smile on my face – even though I have to get up… try it yourself here.
w00t! Got my Comptroller Shirt – finully!
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 | Music, Reviews, Tech-savvy | 6 Comments
Wifey already told me on the phone that my Comptroller shirt arrived today. (The first one got lost during the postage process…) I asked her to open the package to see whether I could expect something my belly actually fits in. She said: “Yeah, seems to be quite your size, but wait – what is this? There’s a mini CD!” I was like “WHAT? How kewl is that?” I had no idea! The order form didn’t mention a CD when I used it (afaicr), therefore I was surprised big time. Right now I am listening to an interpretation of the C64 classic “Last Ninja 2” – awesome! No really, go get Comptroller‘s stuff, it’s so much fun to listen to his chiptune sounds in the car while your passenger cannot decide whether to escape at the next traffic light or dare ask for a copy
Excerpt from the mini CDs inlay:
Directions to use -
a) Put on your Comptroller t-shirt
b) Activate CD
c) Get pumped!
d) GO GO GO
Brilliant! Thanks Comptroller for making my day 
And thanks Jack for your “protekshun” …
Great Britain at a glance
Sunday, July 25th, 2010 | Misc, Reviews, Sites | 1 Comment
Here are some random impressions from our UK (well, England and Scotland) 2010 summer roadtrip. A few more words about the trip and what we learned from it can be found at Lisa’s blog. Enjoy!
Chiptune Madness
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 | Gadgets, Misc, Music, Reviews, Tech-savvy | 1 Comment
Thanks to my favourite emag Lotek64 I stumbled upon some really interesting music: Chiptune!
I like to listen to OSTs of games and films (favourite game OST: Turrican 1/2 by Chris Hülsbeck, favourite motion picture OST: Avalon by Kenji Kawai). Reading Lotek64 the absolutely stylish cover arose my initial interest, reading the review I decided to give it a try:
(Chip) Comptroller veröffentlicht mit seinem RPM2010-Album auch sein Debüt. Zwischen schnellen und wütenden Chipbeats kommen dabei auch immer nette kleine Melodien zum Vorschein.
Free Download @ http://comptrolleralpha.co.uk/album/comptroller
Listening to this artistic musical creation reminds me of endless GameBoy sessions and the time I connected my GameBoy to my home stereo to listen to the music of Super Mario Land and, naturally, Tetris. The sound of Comptroller is “great” in the sense of interesting/disturbing – sometimes even toothaching listened to at the right volume
Lotek64 Issue 33 has more interesting musical reviews, such as an 8bit NES chiptune version of Pink Floyd‘s “The Dark Side of the Moon” called Moon8.
(Remake) … Wer das nur für einen musikalischen Scherz hält, irrt. Mit Moon8 tut Brad Smith Pink Floyd einen großen Gefallen, indem er die Stärken des Albums offenlegt und mit seiner klanglich zwangsläufig äußerst minimalistischen Auslegung der Kompositionen zu einer Entmystifizierung dieses überhöhten Werks beiträgt. Hier wird auf unerwartete Weise hörbar, wie The Dark Side of the Moon klingen könnte, wäre es nicht so hoffnungslos überproduziert und verkitscht worden. Moon8 ist die bessere Version des Albums, dessen Qualitäten endlich auf würdige Art hörbar werden.
Free download @ http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/moon8.html
Crazy shit indeed! Thanks Lotek64 for providing these reviews!
Googleing I also found two blogs (The Chiptune Blog, Stadkind: Berlin), just in case you want to listen to some more chiptunes. So far, I like the idea a lot!
Germany is Beautiful – Aggertalsperre
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010 | Misc, Reviews, Sites | 3 Comments
As some of you might know I’ve been abroad for 7 month, visiting various places and getting to know a lot of interesting spots far far away countries have to offer. Though talking about Germany’s sites doesn’t ring a bell. This is quite a pity and about to change, because me and my wife a.) want to get to know local picturesque places (1-3h driving perimeter) and b.) we are test-driving our new camping gear.
First location: Aggertalsperre Oberbergisches Land, NRW
I “found” this location playing around with Google Earth. First I wanted to visit the Brucher Talsperre, but me and wify couldn’t find a suitable camping ground there. After trying a few more locations (Lingesetalsperre, Kerspetalsperre) I fell back to old habits and googled “kierspe camping”. On of the results was “Campingplatz Stubenrauch“, residing just at the shore of the Aggertalsperre. We decided to drive there, check it out and stay if it was okay, head back home otherwise. We decided to stay and had a fun afternoon, got visited by Rob and Myri, had a pretty good dinner, received great hospitality, used clean and working facilities and popped our tent’s cherry.
Now we are back, the tent is dry and clean, stowed away in the cellar and I can’t wait to get back couching to enjoy some quality PS3 time.
Review: Guitar Hero Metallica
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 | Games, Reviews | 3 Comments
Tonight, I played one of the greatest games ever.
Guitar Hero Metallica.
If you ask me about my favourite game of all frickin’ time it would be Turrican (Part 1 and 2 ) The second place is occupied by a dozen games, such as almost every Mario instalment, the Monkey Island series, Zelda, GTA 4 ++, Midnight Club L.A., Blockout, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima, Faery Tale Adventure, Parasite Eve, you name it.
When I came home from work tonight my wife had to leave for a babysitting session. So I took the chance to chuck in Guitar Hero Metallica for the first time ever. It’s been 6 hours since, I had a hell lot of fun and I am pretty pissed right now (5 bottles o’ brew and aching fingertips to my account).
Wow, I’ve been James Hetfield! I’ve been Kirk Hammett. I’ve been live on stage (my kittehs complained or cheered, I dunno)! You may think I am crazy, but if you are into Metal, 30+ o’ age and willing to pay a dazzling 20 bucks you are in! The game is very well done and after the disappointing Guitar Hero 4 and 5 (from a technical point of view) this release is finally something you can just jump into playing. It just works. Once I calibrated the lag (25ms audio and video) I was rocking my shiny metal ass off!
6 out of 5 stars! – if you are into the genre go get it right away and donate to the creators!
Review: The Lovely Bones (2009)
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
I used to be a big Peter Jackson fan. Bad Taste was the first splatter film I’ve ever seen (at the age of 14!) and I almost wet my pants doing so (laughing my arse off). A hilarious masterpiece. Brain Dead and Meet the Feebles followed and I watched them quite a few times back then. Then his style completely changed. First, a disturbing drama about friendship that is to kill for: Heavenly Creatures, after that Forgotten Silver – a nice mockumentary about a supergenius filmmaker. The horror comedy The Frighteners never really got to me (even though Micheal J. Fox stars in this one). Then, Lord of the Rings got announced and like a lot of people I couldn’t believe the news at first, but later on I was convinced that PJ would be the only guy out there capable of doing it right – just because his prior films where so very special. Well, we all know he did a very good job, followed by a pretty mediocre King Kong remake (childhood dream, fair enough). After years of production (well, at least it was pronounced years and years ago) his new major release hits the theatres. The Lovely Bones. The story of a life and everything that came after…
If you are easily disturbed or very sensitive you can stop reading here. This film is not for you.
The story evolves around a 14 year old girl that get’s abused and killed by a sociopathic man. Her spirit first doesn’t realize that she is dead, and stays to observe how the famlily adapts to the new situation until she is finally ready to pass on. A very touching adaptation of the book by Alice Sebold. I don’t want to tell any more, you should have already got the hang of what you can expect from this film. Just one more thing: watching the credits I asked my wife “Who wants to see such a film, anyway?” wiping away my tears…
8.0 / 10 – a very well done film – cruel, dreamy, sad – not for the faint o’heart
P.S. – I also waited to see if my ole ‘discman’ mate Matt Dravitzki is still around. Executive assistant to PJ by now, congratz! (Yeah, IMDb could’ve provided the information right away, but that’s like cheating) – a pity I haven’t heard from him in years.
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