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You couldn't possibly cut a live dog in half on screen and use it for target practice while wearing pink polka-dotted bondage gear! Oh! They did it! That must make it good. No. It was a cynical ploy by the marketing people that backfired on their stupid asses: kids stayed away from the film because of the trauma, the film itself had an unremarkable plot, and all the emotional investment in the characters was callously discarded in about five minutes. Imagine if they did that in Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica: suddenly kill off everyone you loved and introduced a bunch of "who?" characters in order to make an extra buck on t-shirt sales. When Spock died in the Wrath of Khan it was a deep, terrifying and heart-wrenching moment of self-sacrifice with emotional resonance. When Ellen Tigh was poisoned, you felt the pain of Saul, you knew is love for her, felt the terrible choice he had to make. In Transformers: The Movie, a bunch of greedy corporate buttmunchers decided the Market needed a kick in the pants, so they killed Ironhide, Brawn, Wheeljack...mostly off-screen and without any consideration for the audience or the people were buying their products. It was empty. Pointless. A cheap way of making more money that backfired when the film bombed. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the film, the art was brilliant, it had a great soundtrack and Unicron was an incredibly inventive enemy. But the rest... All the death was just so Valueless.

http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2011/09/13/the-poison-of-guanxi/ My article pretty muc sums it up. Caring can get you sued, hurt or both. China is a fractured society.

BUT THEN THEY KILLED OPTIMUS PRIME! Heartless, soulless EMPTY attempt to cash in by making more toys. I hope the people who ok'd that horrible, pointless death have some kind of horrific genital dysfunction for the rest of their sad, miserable lives.

Important Notice N-Europe forum user "flameboy" has officially been disqualified from the human race for suggesting that any film featuring the death of Beloved Optimus Prime and the emergence of Big Crappy Emo Rodimus Prime is "awesome". Please pass on to all agencies. Thank you.

Rule 34 there again I see... Gay Pride starts here next week and there are a couple of Halloween parties at the end of the week, but I'm not sure if I can be bothed to dress up - I don't want to be the one asshole covered head-to-toe in an Iron Man costume when the rest of the world is divided into buys covered in fake blood pretending to be vampires or zombies and girls dressed in black miniskirts saying they're vampires. Or the honest among them just saying they're sluts.

No. I mean, no. Sorry, what I meant to say was no

I'm in shock! Hooray! You're not as stupid as you look! Everything is redeemed! Yay! In my defence, you do look pretty stupid, so what else was I supposed to think?

I've always been completely indifferent to the character - except in The Ultimates, so I know where you're coming from. He's too powerful to be interesting at times. That said, I enjoyed the film on the plane when I watched it. Okay, so it wasn't exactly Shakespeare, but it was fun enough. :P please tell me someone understands the reference...

Who hadn't been where? Jordan? He broke up with Letty and left. ... I'm sorry, what is actually going on?

Absolutely. They can also to be flammable. Particularly to butcher's shops.

Are you kidding me? It was like watching a fat man fall down in slow motion onto a rattlesnake - tragically hilarious.

I assume you mean "Comedy Gold"?

Oh no, what will I put in my rhubarb crumble now?!? TELL ME!

A true pioneer. Took Apple from nothing and turned it into a global brand. Walk down the street and you'll see any old tart with an Apple, the cox from my old rowing club had Apples - even old Granny Smith had an Appl. What a shame for his family, condolences for their loss. P.S. Jay make up your Fking mind which thread to close and then stick to it.

Happy birthday to everyone for the next three months that has a birthday. Right, that's me done with then. So everyone who has a birthday between now and the 4th of February should check this thread, because I'm not saying it again. Except for me. It's my birthday in that demarcated period and I don't expect to say ittomyself. I do expect presents, however.

I will give you two pandas. Don't ask where I got them from.

Belated happy birthday wishes, you odd fellow.

BI-SICKLE BI-SICKLE! God, I miss Freddie Mercury...

I have to put my tuppence in here: Both my grandmother, mother, great grandfather and uncle all knew the date and specifics of their own deaths. My grandmother knew that she would die early September, from something unknown - she had an undiagnosed micro tumor pressing on part of her brain, and she knew my uncle would be the last person to see her. It happened, bitches. My mother - and I find it hard to type this - told everyone she would die alone, and before her 33rd birthday. She did. Great grandfather begged us not to put him in a home as he had spoken numerous times of his firm belief that he wouldn't see out a week there. Six days after he moved in, he passed away in his sleep. My uncle, died at 12, of a heart attack. He always told my father that his greatest hope was to one day be a teenager - they all laughed, but he said it would never happen as he couldn't see past the July of that year. He died on July 31st. And yours truly, is absolutely convinced that he doesn't see 42. It'll be cancer. Anyway, moving on. These TV psychics are all pretty much BS-artists, cold reading, being fed information, audience plants... but people need it sometime. Because if religion fails us, and there is nothing after death. Then that's terrifying, isn't it? Nevertheless, there are genuinely people who are in contact not simply with the deceased, but with the world as a whole on a different plane. There are these people who seem to float in and out of reality, they have partial contact, but only see glimpses of this place. It's like they're laying across leylines (boo!), one toe in the water. They're conduits for this information, but also not exactly ideal for communicating as they are barely lucid, with flashes of madness. It's the difference between riding a moped and rocking a Harley... sometimes the shit needs to get through, and there's no other way. The real psychics, the ones who can, never really do. Speaking as a Shaman, I've not spoke to my animal guides in a fair while. Perhaps I should, I felt a lot better when I did. Not much sense there - broken finger and early morning, yo.

Getting Away with Murder in China This article was picked up by CDT http://www.chinadigitaltimes.net, a prominent pro-democracy movement in the US written by exiled Chinese. They have a lot of links with the NYT and the WSJ, so that was a massive boost. I was sitting there at breakfast yesterday casually reading the site when I thought "...hang on a second... I recognise that writing.... That was me!" I didn't even know the editor had accepted it. China's Halting Response to Libya This one was actually two articles that the editor ripped to shreds and re-pasted. I'm not proud of the finished product, but it's more exposure.

Here we are, recruits: as you can see, the truly insane may have moments of startling lucidity. But don't let them pull the wool over your eyes: they are at their most dangerous when they appear their calmest.

That's a whole lot of shaking going on... ...sorry... Feel for you.

I loved B-K, and my thing was a nice sit down for an afternoon of gaming and a bag (or two) of Haribo Starmix. No cups of tea, just some squash and Starmix. Banjo-Kazooie is still awesome. As is Starmix.

Someone should yell at you for spoilers, but seeing as Rare basically SPOILED THE ENTIRE GAME BY MAKING IT, we can let it go.