In the wake of the SOPA debacle in the US, Canada has it’s OWN issues with upcoming legislation. Specifically the C-11 bill. This is the letter I just wrote to the many ministers and MP’s supporting this bill:

Canada used to represent fairness and democracy to the world by treating its citzens’ with respect and decency with regards to legislation. It is quite alarming, then, to see how the pending C-11 bill appears to be written entirely in favour of the media and entertainment industries with scant regard to the rights of the individual Canadian. Sadly the Canadian general public cannot afford lobbyists and other pressure groups, meaning it is left to the honesty and integrity of those governing the country to ensure that any legislation is balanced for the greater good, and not for the financial gain of a select few, or to engage in legislation that would render a large proportion of the population criminals.

There are many troubling issues in the legislation.

Firstly, you would essentially render PVR’s illegal without broadcast flags. Why? Where is the common sense in this?

The anti-circumvention provisions included in Bill C-11 unfairly equip corporate copyright owners and distributors in the music, movie and video game industries with a powerful set of tools that can be utilized to exercise absolute control over Canadians’ interaction with media and technology and quite possibly even undermine Canadians’ constitutional rights.

We would be legally prohibited from making copies of legally obtained items. Also denied access to the tools required to make copies within the law.

I am allowed to own guns for legal purposes, despite those routinely being used for criminal acts. This makes C-11 all the more ridiculous. I can legally own a device that can kill people, yet NOT obtain a tool to copy a movie or CD I purchased to my iPod?

There is also the issue of copy protection for software. The bill would make it illegal to “crack” your software to circumvent the protection. This, despite the fact that any long time software user on the PC will have been in the position st least once where copy protection has prevented them from running their legally obtained software. Any law which makes the individual in this situation a criminal is unjust and unfair.

Then there is the issue of accusations of piracy. On several occasions I have been forced to download software from the Internet because my LEGALLY PURCHASED media has been damaged or there was some other issue or technical limitation preventing me from using it. Under C-11 it appears that were I caught doing this, my ISP could be forced to kill my Internet connection.

What happened to the burden of proof? Due process?

This is troubling enough, without mentioning the fact that with more and more people relying on wireless networks, and more and more security issues regarding the use of wifi (such as the recent WPS crack on WPA encryption which renders the current best wifi encryption available cracked in under 10 hours, and in many cases cannot be protected against) you have placed people in the situation where they could lose their Internet without them having done anything. A real world comparison would be someone steals your car because you left the keys in the ignition. They drive to the library and photocopy a book. You are then arrested.

C-11 is legislation aimed at protecting dinosaurs from the asteroid that’s already here. Rather than having Canada lead the way with evolution, you introduce legislation that stifles technology and crushes peoples rights. Canada could, and should be, a beacon, as it has been on so many occasions in the past. Legislating fair copyright law that benefits the people at large would set a tremendous example to the world.

Instead, at a time when Canada could be leading the way and being a force for good, it seems you care less and less for the electorate and any sort of fairness, preferring instead to defer to corporate interests and lobbyists. At least if you do strip Canadians’ of their rights and criminalize a vast percentage of the population and give all encompassing control to the media and entertainment industries, I can at least say I tried to ask you to see reason and decency.

Bridesmaids – No idea why this got such great reviews. Painfully unfunny. I laughed twice. Kristen Wiig is just not funny. Can’t stand her on SNL. Just as annoying in this. Gags weren’t so much milked as they were taken down an alley and bludgeoned to death to make a point. Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd were the only saviors of an otherwise dire film that was not only unfunny but at least 40 minutes too long. 1/5

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Another trip to the Racially Pure School of Wizardy that is Hogwarts. Some actual minorities in this one! Diversity rules!!! After the hideous disappointment of Chamber of Secrets this was a massive leap in quality in story and direction. Everything Chamber failed to be. Loved it. 4/5

Jan 24th

I Need That Record – Documentary about the demise of independent record stores. Mildly entertaining. 2/5

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest – The final movie in the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Phenomenal movie. Loved it. One of the most satisfying movies I’ve ever watched. 5/5

Jan 25th

The Artist - What a film. A lovingly complete homage to the silent movie era following George Valentin, a silent movie actor who has the world in his hand, and the switch to talking pictures, which if you know your movie history you know was brutal to many a silent actors career. Beautifully shot. Beautifully cast. Just a wonderful, wonderful film. When people ask me why I love film I can wave my hands in the direction of The Artist and say “THIS!” 5/5

Jan 26th

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Big screen adaptation of the famous spy novel. Alec Guinness was George Smiley in the BBC adaptation in the late 70′s and Oldman channels him beautifully. As Oldman gets older I find he’s become a far more interesting actor. Perhaps this is down to his choice of films to make now. This film is very slow paced but really took me back to the 70′s and how when I was a kid a spy seemed like an interesting career choice. Superbly cast, with Benedict Cumberbatch really standing out. Tom Hardy is also very good. In short it’s a British spy thriller. Though thriller is perhaps the wrong genre. It’s much more a character piece. A slow burning investigation into who is the mole out of the four individuals Smiley is investigating. In an era where spies in film have to beat lots of people up it’s terrific to see a spy movie like this. Makes me remember how, as a kid, being a spy seemed so exciting and dangerous. Really good. 4/5

Jan 28th

Shaun of the Dead

Total Movies Watched 28 of 366

Jan 15th

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – Continuing the trawl through Potter. Not bad, but why is it not called Hermione Granger given she saves the day most often. Oh right, a heroine without giant breasts wouldn’t sell. Diversity in this one even worse than last time. Did not see a single minority in the entire film. Admittedly I was having a hard time staying awake it was so interminable. 2/5

Jan 16th

Moon – Sam Rockwell plays a man working alone on a moon base who starts to hallucinate near the end of his three year contract. To go into any more detail would spoil it. Best movie I’ve seen so far during Movie 366. 5/5

Jan 17th

The Girl Who Played with Fire - The second in the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. The sequel is set up nicely, but sadly the last 20 minutes or so deflates the movie a bit. While it’s still good, it’s not up to the standard of the prior 90 minutes or so. Very keen to see the third and final movie. 4/5

Jan 18th

Paranormal Activity – Great little horror film. Ending was shocking, but the alternate endings were better. Spielberg suggested the ending change. More proof Spielberg is a hack now. Shameless sequel pandering. Enjoyable though. 3/5

Jan 19th

TT3D: Closer to the Edge – Terrific documentary about the Isle of Man TT. Shamefully ignored by BAFTA whereas Senna wasn’t. 4/5

Jan 20th

Anonymous – AKA Lots of men with similar beards Does for Shakespeare what Dan Brown did for Da Vinci. Terrible, turgid tripe. Was so excited to see this. One of the biggest cinematic disappoints of my entire life. Utter waste of resources and the world is a poorer place for this film being in it. Shamefully poor considering the cast, often epic cinematography etc… 0/5

Jan 21st

Bring it On – Cheerleaders. Kirsten Dunst! Yay! Eliza Dushku! Meh! Formulaic but fun. Worth it for Sparky. 3/5

Total Movies Watched: 21 of 366

Jan 8th

Megamind – Mediocre CG. Tediously predictable with a mostly annoying cast. Jonah Hill needs to go away and never come back. 2/5

Jan 9th

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone – Had neither read the books nor seen the films. This was my first taste of Potter, though I knew a lot via cultural osmosis. Enjoyed it. Though Hogwarts should have “Doing the bare minimum to meet diversity requirements” as their slogan… 4/5

Jan 10th

Hard Boiled – Probably the most influential action movie ever made. John Woo’s magnificent ballet of violence, with a truly spectacular closing half hour involving a shoot out in a hospital and the best use of baby urine ever. 5/5

Jan 11th

The Mist – Based on a short story by Stephen King. Depressing though, seeing a great portrayal of how quickly society could fall apart. Read the original story 20+ years ago. Had to Google the original ending to see how it compares to the film. It’s different to the book. No spoilers here. I recommend having Prozac on hand. (Trivia: The shop clerk/bag boy is the actor who voices Dobby in the Harry Potter movies.) 4/5

Jan 12th

Confederate States of America – Ken Burns-like documentary about what happened when the south won the civil war. Fascinating alternate history with a disturbing epilogue that elevated it beyond mere fictional fluff. 3/5

Jan 14th

Dr. No – The first James Bond film. Given it was the start of the biggest franchise in film history, an iconic film. 50th anniversary of the franchise. Plan on watching all of them for this little project. 3/5

From Russia With Love – Second Bond film. Finding its feet as a franchise. Really fun movie with a great turn from Robert Shaw who, 12 years later, got eaten by a shark in another movie I plan to watch for Movie 366. 3/5

Total Movies Watched: 14 of 366

Jan 1st:

Rango – Great animated movie that really captured the western vibe brilliantly, with a stellar voice cast. Really good. 4/5

Jan 3rd
Star Trek First Contact – The best of the TNG films. Patrick Stewart, always great, gives his best Picard performance. Chills from his speech to Lily about falling back from the Borg. 4/5

Death to Smoochy – Dark comedy about a naive children’s tv host (Ed Norton). Waited ten years to see this. Didn’t disappoint. 4/5

Jan 4th

Contagion – A zombie movie without the zombies. The spread of a literal virus, as well as the figurative virus of fear, told from many different perspectives. Superb score. Bit of a lightweight movie though. Soderbergh has done better. 3/5

Jan 5th

Go – Doug Liman’s late 90′s classic with multiple viewpoints viewing the same night. Flat out brilliant with a soundtrack to match and a great cast including a pre-brainwashing Katie Holmes. 5/5

Jan 6th

UHF – Weird Al’s comedy opus. Awesome. Now spin the Wheel of Fish. 5/5

Jan 7th

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – The original Swedish version. Very good thriller. Curious to find out what David Fincher changed in his remake. Not sure I can be bothered seeing it though. 4/5

Movie count so far: 7

The first I ever heard of Marillion was when Kayleigh charted in 1985. Lovely song, even if my mother dismissed it as trite. (You should have heard what she said about Lavender.) Then a couple of years later Incommunicado popped up on my musical radar, only to be promptly dismissed as it was that Marillion band who seemed pretentious and stupid. The only other time I remember hearing their name was when a girl was assaulted at a concert and they asked members of Marillion Fan Club to come forward if they knew anything.

Fast forward to 1990. A girl entered my life. Actually technically she entered it in 1989. She had been born a mere 40 hours later than me, in the same place. Is this relevant? No, it isn’t. Her name was Alison, and she opened my eyes to many things. All of them music related (sadly). While I had heard Marillion previously, Alison was my gateway into the larger world of Fish lyrics which to this day still rank as some of the most poetic compositions ever written. (And Hogarth can go suck it.)

It was late at night, parked up near Portsdown Hill in my favourite car I ever owned (a vomit yellow Fiat 128) and listening to music. Alison dug a tape out and put it on my AWESOME stereo that had one solitary speaker nailed to a bit of the word on the parcel shelf.

“I did this tape for you.” She said.

Seemingly the quietest intro ever started to play. Fish whispering “Tux On”… At the time I figured he may be mispronouncing “Tucson”, but no.

It was eyes down at the bingo, on that lucky Friday night/The match was rained off Saturday, but the panel came in right/And on Sunday your mates were toasting you with champagne down the pub/And on Monday you went to London to pick the cheque up with your mum/You had a tux on…

Now I am a sucker for songs that tell actual stories. (One reason why Stan Ridgway and Nick Cave will feature higher in this chart, and on more than one occasion.) The song continues with the protagonist turning his new found riches into a music career, sinking into drugs and depravity, and dying of an overdose. All jolly stuff.

It’s an epic, dark song. While it’s not my favourite Marillion song, it IS the only one on this top 50 for one simple reason. It was THE song that turned me into a Marillion fan, and for that I rank its importance to this list higher than the rest. While Fish wrote better songs both solo and with the band, this one makes the list for the memories it evokes of sitting in that rainy car park one Friday night, with a girl I was madly in love with, journeying into a musical world I had never ventured into before.

So some top suit at Blizzard came out and said he was surprised at the fact that 99.9% of gamers are pissed off with this requirement. Everyone assumes it’s about DRM. However, he claims this never entered in  to the discussion about the decision. (I will not name him lest, like Candyman he appears behind me, only instead of killing me he’ll remove my rights to everything on my system.)

”Internally I don’t think [DRM] ever actually came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate. Things that came up were always around the feature-set, the sanctity of the actual game systems like your characters. You’re guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes. All of these things were points of discussion, but the whole copy protection, piracy thing, that’s not really entering into why we want to do it.”

He them pulled his penis out, proceeded to urinate on the head of the interviewer and said “Oh look. It’s raining!!!!“

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(Note: For non-UK people: There is an old expression. “Don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining” when someone is lying to you.)

Sadly I have no interest in the full thing. Boycotting Ubisoft aside, the game just isn’t very interesting.

It’s a bad sign if in your game, acting completely AGAINST the ethos of it is more fun.

Drowning my villagers was infinitely more enjoyable than actually doing what was asked. Scooping up water and dropping it on them then zooming in to watch them swim was hilarious.

There’s nothing to see really beyond what’s in the demo. I might keep it around in demo form for some villager torturing fun, but I’m certainly not ponying up my Microsoft Happy Fun Points for it.

At the start I dropped to 31st place purely because I was taking it easy. After all you don’t win the race on the first lap, but you can sure as heck lose it. Sadly two laps in it I got it all wrong at the Porsche Curves and slammed into the barriers, damaging the car. With steering brutally wrong I limped back to the pits, where 3 minutes of repairs awaited me. The frustration as I heard car after car storming past me was something I’ve never experienced before in a sim.

On rejoining I was, of course, dead last. However, ahead of me lay the entirety of two slower classes, so making progress back up the field was swift. Eventually arriving in 38th place when I had my first pitstop. After this a few cars in the fastest class retired. I was starting to think they would ALL go out but it must have been a coincidence as there’s still 7 cars going in that class from the initial ten.

At the three hour mark I’m in 21st place. I was fighting hard to gain a place in my class, only for the car I’d been fighting so long to retire. That was a disappointment as I had unlapped myself from him and was clawing my way back a few seconds a lap only to lose him. I was imaginging Radio Le Mans commentating as I chased him down.

I’ve just completed my second pit stop. By far the most fun is bombing down Mulsanne and having the top class GT40′s come blasting past you. The first time this happened I actually said “Wow!” out loud, it was that impressive to see.

On a technical note the AI isn’t causing problems. The AIW file for the track seems good and I’ve seen few incidences of cars getting stuck behind slower ones which is good.I also save regularly in case a technical gremlin turns up. In all gMotor2 games I have an issue where the game will randomly freeze up and mess all the textures up. Had this happen once. So I had to reload. Another time I over-revved at the end of Mulsanne and blew the engine. While I am all for realism, I am not starting the race again just to avoid that. In some ways maybe I should have as my Ferrari’s tyres are historically accurate and therefore akin to driving around with nothing more than duct tape for wheels. Actually I think Duct Tape would have more grip!

The faster class is lapping me, on average, every 6 laps. It’s fun to see the battle unfold as first and second, despite being three hours in, are little more than 10 seconds apart. I’m using GTR-XD to give more info on screen, like positions, but I can’t get it to show the entire field so I’m left to figure out the gaps for the faster cars when they whizz past me.

It’s starting to get dark at the circuit now. 7pm. For a while the clouds started to gather and there was very light rain which made the track slick for a couple of laps it seemed, but it passed and clear skies rule the day now as the sun sets over the Circuit De La Sarthe and I race on into the night…