Kong

Another killer Thursday. After doping myself up with sugar to get me through the first supervision of the day, I ended up crashing in my third lecture right before another supervision, leaving me in not the best state as I staggered back home. Slumped down at last, I began feeling much rosier as I realised that at least I was free for the week. Our Ball posters are now strategically positioned around the faculty which cheered me up, especially since one is sitting right next to Girton’s (theirs is the same day) and totally blows it away. You know, from an unbiased objective standpoint. The committee’s Ball stash has also arrived, though I haven’t had a spare moment to drop by and collect it from Sara. I’ll snap a couple of photos of the hoodie and the t-shirt, possibly modelled by someone prettier than me.

When I heard Peter Jackson’s next project was King Kong, I’ll admit I wasn’t particularly interested. When I heard he’d cast Jack Black I was less than enamoured. Having seen the teaser trailer, I was just bored and looking for something else to entertain me. Yet another needless remake that, while very pretty, seemed to have nothing in the way of substance or anything new to offer. All that has changed with the release of the new trailer (available in high definition). From the very first glimpse of Kong, you realise there’s something special going on here. I’m a little apprehensive about waxing lyrical over Weta’s work again so soon (last time it was regarding Narnia), they’ve done another phenomenal job. You see such majesty and feeling etched upon the face of the great beast who shows not just expressions but emotions. His power and presence is immense. And he’s not even real. The only thing that piqued my interest from the start was that Andy Serkis (he of Gollum fame) had been hired to provide similar services in the titular role. Unsurprisingly it looks like he’s worth every penny.

Child’s Play 2005 has kicked off. Gabe and Tycho set up the charity a couple of years ago with a very simple premise: for each hospital in the scheme, Amazon wishlists of gaming products are created and the donor simply finds an item on the list and purchases it. This utterly removes the usually charity donation concerns about administrative costs and how much of your cash really reaches its target as the gift is sent directly by Amazon to the hospital. Better yet, this year they’re looking to expand the scheme to the UK as well, but the hospital is unconfirmed yet. If you spot that change then let me know. Finally, since the issue of the use of first person plural on this site has been raised before, perhaps this will shed some light.