Top 5 Web series and the like

The Internet is a weird and wonderful place, but it has some damn creative people on it, some funny some serious some a bit of both (*ahem*) but some stand above the rest obviously. I've decided to use today to make a list of my 5 favourite web released media, whether it be via personal websites, youtube etc, see if anyone wants to have a watch themselves:

5. 

30-second bunnies theatre

Source http://www.angryalien.com/ and youtube (abetoons)

Does exactly what it says on the tine really, animated bunnies perform popular movies in 30 seconds (or thereabouts) it's not a hit every time, but when it's good it's great (Grindhouse, Evil Dead 2, Rocky Horror). Your general enjoyment of the short is pretty much in line with your enjoyment of the film as a rule so if you pick your favourite films, you'll enjoy the shorts, appriciate the jokes, the touches of details, which can be outstanding at times. Much recommended!

Apparently there's a DVD available, but I wouldn't go that far...

I've stuck an example below!

4.

Dai Ling Ping

Source http://www.dailingping.co.uk/ and youtube (MrLBXv2)

There may be a fairr bit of local loyalty here but Dai does crack me up. He, along with some other users, play XBOX 360 online, particularly Call of Duty games and practise the art known as griefing. Generally being a dick to get a reaction out of the other players, and of course with people who take COD far far too seriously, he generally succeeds in getting a reaction, and as he's pretty quick witted to stay ahead of them, it's highly amusing.

Of course after a while this can become dull as fuck so Dai has branched out into older game reviews, playthroughs, prank calls and the like. Without spoiling too much, he appears to be gifted with accents and uses a voice changer, it's best to listen to him to be honest.

Oh and highly NSFW, strong language.

Here's a classic:

3.

The Guild

Source http://www.watchtheguild.com/ or XBOX live or Zune or youtube (theguild)

The guild was the brainchild of Felicia Day and is now the ripe old age of 5 series old (the series 5 finale due out tomorrow in fact!) and apparently was an inspiration to other titles on this list. It basically it a sit-com regarding the interactions of a guild from an unnamed online video game (actually only ever called 'The Game') not entirely dissimilar to World of Warcraft.

They start off having never met, and personal issues, eventually force them too and the series develops from there. Some of the acting is very good and the cast cameos can be superb on times (Star Trek, Big Bang Theory, Eurika and Stand By Me actor Wil Whedon is regular, Nathan Fillion, Brent Spiner, Colin Ferguson have all guested in series 5). 

Many people who play such online games (me) will identify with the situations and personalities and overall this is a top series. DVDs available again but only region 1 I believe.

I've attached the pilot!

2.

The Angry Video Game Nerd

Source 

http://cinemassacre.com/

 or youtube (JamesNintendoNerd)

This guy cracks me up, he also has a video game collection that I'm amazingly envious of. The guys name is James Rolfe and he makes videos reviewing retro games, typically pretty damn poor retro games, under the persona of The Angry Video Game Nerd.

He's typically foul mouthed and very very NSFW but delivers it with such venom that is comes across as funny. He also manages to make the reviews informative resisting the temptation to nit-pick.

Under different sections of the site (and app which I own, I also have Dai Ling Pings app, but this guys I actually paid for) he does movie reviews, plays board games (Bored James), and does short rants under the title 'YOU KNOW WHAT'S BULLSHIT'. It's all good and very funny. Plus I do wish I had 1/50th of his collection... Send donations too...

Here's a good example of his little reviews an an awful game to boot:

At this point I'll mention the ones who didn't make the top 5, and there are plenty of good ones out there, whether it be The Legend of Neil, Dragon Age (Day in both of them again), the Mortal Kombat trailer (ok rubbish, but somewhat interesting despite), the Various Star Trek series, Fallout, Red Vs Blue. There's loads more out there so go investigate!

So, on to...

1.

Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Source Various including iTunes, youtube etc

Yes I know it's not exactly the same kind of production values as some of the others. But this is awesome!

Joss Whedon used the writers strike to produce this, makes the strike worthwhile all on its own if you ask me! Starring in it were Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), Nathan Fillion (Castle, Firefly), Felicia Day (again), and Simon Helberg (Big Bang Theory) and each was excellent.

The script is as slick as you'd expect, the songs good and memorable and at 45 minutes, you'll wish it was longer. Apparently there is to be a sequel once Joss is finished working on The Avengers. I mean honestly where's the priorities!! 

I have the DVD and the commentary track (well one of them) is produced as an entirely different musical to compliment the one on screen with the actors (in varying degrees of character) interact and clash about the show and themselves.

This needs to be watched by all. Hate Musicals? Well see it as a superhero film? Not doing it for you, ok romantic comedy etc. Works on so many levels.

Here's the first bit from youtube: 

Once you've seen it all, 8-bit Dr Horrible is excellent too.

TTFN

Lloret rocks, alpharooms suck

Right, it's got to be said, these blogs are turning a little into the consumer section on that's life. But I don't care, it's my blog and I'll write what I like so there :p

Firstly, I had a delightful time in Espania. Lloret is a lovely place, not really targeted at the Brits so much any more, or maybe not at this point in the season anyway. But the hotel was decent the staff was nice, all in all it was a lovely little trip.

The only downside was... well getting home at the end. We noticed the night before that Alpharooms, who we'd booked everything through, had made a mistake with the return transfer, which would have left us stuck for a very long time in the airport. So we rang up to arrange, the first woman, unhelpful but gave us another number, the second one took their time, seemingly couldn't work their own systems (all while we should have been partying on our last night out there) then eventually gave us a new time and pick up point. To be sure, we passed the phone woman to the receptionist to write stuff down due to slight difficulty understanding the Spanish accent. She even drew us a little map, how nice!

We ate and drabnk and were merry! Eventually after sorting these people out, it can take the shine off the last night of a holiday (actually a honeymoon) when you have to sort out stuff people have cocked up on your behalf.

Following morning, checked out after a nice breakfast (gotta love a bit of all inclusive buffet style grub!), at least 50% of us remembered to get their wrist band snipped, (the other 50% may have kept it on til we were in a party on the sat night) and we trekked over to the Guitart Monterray to get picked up (We were staying in the Guitart Capri!). Well we waited for the bus, and waited and the due time passed, and we got a little(!) stressed and waited and then phoned.

Yay! We'd been given the wrong pick up location and the bus had fucked off without us. No choice, panic stations, ran back to hotel, asked the still helpful reception staff to get us a taxi and we taxi'd it back to the airport in time... and at a cost of €55, we were lucky we had enough cash on us. We also tried asking the Spanish taxi driver for a receipt, I may as well had been asking a Martian for a table tennis ball, so we gave up and went for the plane.

Obviously this annoyed me, it was alpharooms fault for booking the wrong thing and then the coach company (NTIncoming) for giving the wrong info when we tried to fix alpharooms mistake. So on return, I wrote a nice email ready for alpharooms stating I feel they should cover the taxi fare, refund the unused transfer and maybe a little sorry would be nice. I went to their site and guess what. No email address to complain to.

I asked if anyone knew one on twitter and the company themselves contacted me to say no. I mean honestly, how backwards a system. Fair enough if I was supplying receipts or something, but I could even scan them!! I just wanna complain! It's obstructive and obviously designed to make complaining as hard as possible. Poor show. But complain I will. Maybe they'll even read this who knows!

In other news today, series 5 of The Guild starts on XBOX Live! (Thursday for other formats) well I'm assuming that's the case as it's the US release schedule and it should be pretty uniform.

The I.T. Crowd

There's not massive amounts of TV programs that I like these days. We frequently see schedules cramped up with endless streams of reality bullshit, hopeless celebrity programs and talent shows. In fact I'm pretty sure I may have mumped on about this before.

However, there is good TV out there! Yesterday, using the last of my free trial from Amazon Prime (cracking service... not paying £50 a month to use it infrequently) 2 items dropped through my door. The first item was the 3 disc Anchorman/Wake up Ron Burgundy set (£3.99 when I ordered it, bargain and a true classic Will Ferrell film + extras!) and the second was The I.T. Crowd 4.0, which nicely supplements my versions 1-3 boxset!

The writer of this little slice of comedy gold for Channel 4 is a man by the name of Graham Linehan who also has such things as Father Ted and Black Books on his CV, he seems to be pretty good on the whole! However, the undoubted star of the show is Richard Ayoade who is an absolute delight as Moss and apparently, based on his first film, a pretty decent prospect as a director.

The show particularly appeals to 'the likes of' (to use someone elses phrasing) me as it uses quite allot of geeky humour and references but also has enough of general and observational humour to reach past that and appeal to a wider audience (e.g. Cerys likes it too).

The news that a 5th series will be complete and on screens this year is an undoubted bonus and will make my £8-£10 lighter in the pocket as soon as it's available. Even though I was a bit late on this one...

If I had to compare it.. it would be difficult, maybe somewhere in between The Big Bang Theory and The Guild but even that doesn't sit quite right.

Much recommended, but you probably guessed that by now.

Let's get this straight from the start, I'm a simple guy when it comes to food. I'll try just about anything but my favourites always remain the same, and without fail their generally simple foods. Pizza, Burgers and the like.

Well today I was presented with the menu for my office Christmas party, what a pile of self satisfying pointless drivel. It was like the chef had a tug into a piece of paper and this was the mark it left!! I would have respected a menu saying maybe Choice of Beef, Turkey, fish or risotto for main course. But no, everything had to be embellished to the point where it sounded like random words out a Delia Smith best seller.

Now I'm sure when it gets put in front of me I'll enjoy it, the standard will no doubt he high, but ordering it took 3 visits to wikipedia to check what things were!

Now I know I'm being unreasonable... it happens, but why do posh restaurants over word everything? Do they think it throws up some air of sophistication? Do they think it makes them sound better, or set them apart from TGIs? Or is the chef trying to justify his no doubt high wages somehow? I'm no more likely to order something just cos it fills 3 lines on a menu. Pumpkin soup with cheese will sell to me just as well as Roast Pumpkin soup with <forgot the name of the posh cheese> , crusty croutons (not real wording) and almond oil.

I was just gutted I wasn't allowed the steak :(

There I feel a bit better now!

On a lighter note I just finished catching up on Series 4 of the guild which, although brief, remains an absolute delight! Bravo!

Later!