NEW FEATURE LAUNCHED: Space Wednesday/Thursday

AT THE PEAKE OF HIS CAREER

This Monday, the science and industry world of the United Kingdom was sent into the stratosphere... Quite literally! With the announcement of the first British astronaut getting the go ahead to fly in 2015. Despite the 2 years of waiting for spectators and space fans, it’s definitely not going to be a quiet couple of years for Major Tim Peake with the training for the flight both for the trip up and down to the International Space Station (ISS) but also life on board the space station.
Major Peake will be up on the space station for 6 months, during which he will be on a space walk and helping take part in many of the investigations that would help the research of not just NASA, but of the whole world and I think I speak on behalf of the world and especially the people of Great Britain when I say... Good Luck Major Peake, Fly Safe, God Speed.

DOCTOR WHO SERIES 7 PART 2 FINALE

THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR *SPOILERS*

Saturday 18th May 2013 saw the release of the Series 7 Part 2 finale of Doctor Who, and what a finale it was. Current companion Clara has only been on the show for half a series, but she has shook the Who-niverse so much in that short time. From day one we’ve speculated and rumoured about who this impossible girl may be, and The Name Of The Doctor brought that information to us at long last.
*SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT*
Jenny, Vastra and Strax make a big return in the episode, as they have a ‘psychic tea party’ with Clara and River regarding the Doctor’s biggest secret. The Whispermen are on the hunt for the Doctor’s closest friends (the human, the lizard and the Sontaran), and the only way to save them is to travel to the one place a time traveller should never go – his grave.

Yes, Trenzalore is revealed to be the Doctor’s burial planet, and what a grave it is. The TARDIS leaks its ‘bigger-on-the-inside’ technology when it dies, and grows. The perfect monumental grave for our time travelling hero. Breaking into his grave is a massive paradox, as he crosses his own timeline, but he’d owe anything to his friends. River Song accompanies the Doctor and Clara as an echo.

Clara starts to remember things she shouldn’t, for example her forgotten conversation with the Doctor about how she’s died twice already. We finally meet our villain, the Great Intelligence in the shape of Dr. Simeon. He forces the Doctor to open his grave by saying the single activation word – his name. With Jenny, Vastra and Strax and Clara at stake, the Doctor’s in a tricky posiition but the door opens by command of River. As she’s an echo, nobody heard her say his name, but the grave still opened.

Inside we see the Doctor’s timeline. Everything he ever did or will do, and the Great Intelligence steps right through it, ripping him apart, but also contaminating the Doctor’s timeline. Every victory he ever won was reversed. All of the planets and civilisations he saved, was gone. The Doctor was being rewritten. Strax was now pure sontaran, attempting to kill Vastra, but she kills him instead.

Eventually, Clara figures it out. She was born to save the Doctor. It was her in the Dalek Asylum, and in Victorian London. She steps into the timeline, scattering herself across the Doctor’s life, saving him whenever she could. We see her help the First Doctor choose the right TARDIS, look for the Sixth Doctor in the TARDIS, chase the Third Doctor in Bessie, watch over the Tenth Doctor in the library. She is soufflé girl after all.

This is when we get some real closure on River Song. The Doctor confesses to always being able to see and hear her echo, but never saying anything because it would hurt too much. They kiss and he finally says goodbye, and she fades away.

Jenny, Vastra and Strax couldn’t see her so god knows how the kiss looked to them (good old Who humour). Then the Doctor steps into his timestream and finds Clara in a part of his timestream with just incarnations of him. The Doctor sends Clara’s red leaf down to her, and then he falls down to the same room she’s in.

The timestream closes and they see a figure in the distance. Since everybody in the room is him, how come Clara has never seen him before? Choosing the name ‘the Doctor’ is a promise. That man broke that promise. He is the Gallifreyan we know and love, but not the Doctor. He turns around then we see John Hurt, who is starring in the 50th as, what we can safely presume to be, the Valeyard – a dark incarnation of the Doctor between his 12th and final regeneration. This is a massive build up to the anniversary special and I cannot wait. There you have it. Brilliant!

News –19.MAY.13

COMMUNITY GETS SEASON 5

It really couldn’t have been a more down to the wire decision, but NBC have decided to renew sitcom Community for a fifth season. It’s been quite a year for the show, with actor Chevy Chase and ex-show-runner and creator Dan Harmon leaving after quite a dispute. Perhaps because of this, the show continued to have low ratings this year, but it didn’t look so bad compared to the rest of NBC’s struggling schedule (including The Office and 30 Rock). Despite all of this, yesterday (Friday 10th May) Community was renewed for a fifth 13-episode season. Just minutes after the announcement, US fans trended #LongLiveCommunity on social networking site Twitter.
(source)

DAN HARMON COULD RETURN TO COMMUNITY

While on the subject, a new report has suggested series creator Dan Harmon could potentially return to his position of show-runner for Community. I wouldn’t get too excited yet, as no official news has been announced, but www.deadline.com speculates about the possibilities of his return. Now that season 4 has ended, emotions have calmed down between Harmon and Chase (who left this year), so there is certainly a good chance, especially if this is Community’s final season (which hasn’t been announced, but is pretty likely). Deadline are a good source of reliable information, so their information must be coming from someone in-the-know, but for now it’s just a wait and see moment.
(source)

STAR WARS EPISODE VII FILMED IN UK

Star Wars producer LucasFilm says the latest instalment is to be made in the UK. The seventh movie in the series is due to start production next year, and the release date is scheduled to be 2015. “Star Wars is finally going back to its roots, where it started all those years ago in 1976”, says actor Warwick Davis who played an Ewok in 1983’s Return of the Jedi. LucasFilm has not confirmed exactly where the film is going to be shot, but fan website JediNews has speculated that Pinewood Studios may be one of their sites. The Sun also reported that scenes would be shot in the Highlands and the Isle of Skye.
(source)

EMERGENCY IN SPACE

On the 8th May 2013, two astronauts living and working on the international space station (ISS) reported to ground control about seeing flakes flying from part of the craft that NASA later discovered was an ammonia leak on board the space craft. The ground control then went in to hyperactivity and managed to organise a space walk within 3 days and on 11th May, 2 astronauts headed out on a space walk to fix the problem which was eventually solved after 4½ hours.

OKAY GLASS…

Google’s brand new product to be released to the market at the end of the year has been announced as a pair of glasses...
These glasses have a special feature though... They not only include changeable lenses, but a computer system built into the glasses allowing the user to do things such as take a photo or search for something online by using the trigger phrase 'okay glass'. Quite remarkable!

Gaming Update - 5 May 2013

BATMAN ARKHAM ORIGINS

Information from www.batmanarkhamorigins.com: Arkham Origins will feature an expanded Gotham City and introduces an original prequel storyline occurring several years before the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum. Taking place before the rise of Gotham's most dangerous villains and assassins, the game showcases a young, raw, unrefined Batman as he faces a defining moment in his career as a crime fighter that sets his path towards becoming the Dark Knight. As the story unfolds, witness identities being formed, and relationships being forged.

This all sounds very exciting, but fans of the series are having their doubts as UK developer 'Rocksteady' stated they will not be returning for Arkham Origins. The third in the award-winning series will also not feature original Batman voice-actor Kevin Conroy, as DC are trying to make the younger Batman sound as realistic as possible.

TERRARIA 1.2 NEWS

Could the 1.2 update for Terraria on PC be one of the most anticipated indie updates of all time? After February 2012, Andrew Spinks (creator) announced that Terraria 1.1 would be the final update for the game, though still the largest. This upset a lot of devoted fans as 1.1 is hardly much of a game, so when Spinks announced he was going to resurrect the game in March 2013, the anticipation scale began to skyrocket. Not only is the game getting a new update, it is getting the biggest update the game has ever seen, and yes that includes 1.1. Along with new items, biomes and mobs, Spinks has promised players they will have to create multiple worlds and replay the game multiple times to see everything. With that said, it has obviously been confirmed that the game's 5 world limit will be increased, along with the character limit. For a list of full updates (so far), click HERE.

YouTube Review: OfficialNerdCubed

There are lots of YouTubers out there who post gaming commentaries, yet none do so with as much humour and wit as Dan Hardcastle (more commonly known as ‘NerdCubed’ or more simply ‘Nerd³’). His ‘Nerd³ Plays…’ series is extremely clever, as he doesn’t string out the game into dozens of videos to create a walkthrough, he simply shortens one play session of the game into a single 20-60 minute video. This means we get to watch all of the hilarious, witty moments at once, instead of waiting through a bundle of boring ones. Something else I like about him is his urge to play some unknown, yet brilliant games (see Nerd³ Plays… DLC Quest). Something all of his fans adore is his ability to make any terrible game funny, and that is a huge part of why he became so popular (he is currently riding on a huge 678,000 subscribers) – he plays a lot of ‘Simulator’ games. These are made by small companies with small budgets and are usually pretty badly designed and animated. This manages to gain him millions of his views because we just love to laugh along with him. With it being Friday, it seems fitting to mention another of his series’ – Three Free Games Friday. In this, he plays 3 free games (usually Flash Games) which he finds interesting, and talks along with it. This gives fans the ability to play the games that he enjoys without having to spend valuable cash on them. Recently, his Dad started a channel following the popularity of Dan’s series ‘Father and Son-Days’ (that pun illustrates his maturity, which is why we love him). Apparently, people like to see a father with an Essex accent struggle to play video games because that account alone has already gained 115,000 subscribers within just 6 days of posting his first video. Dan’s other series’ include ‘Permadeath’ (in which he plays a game until he dies once, then it ends) and ‘Nerd³ Completes’ (in which he does a complete walkthrough of the game, though edited to maintain humour). Overall, Daniel Hardcastle is one of the funniest YouTube commentators out there, and his low subscriber count (compared to millions some get) could be due to the controversy over what he likes (PS3 over Xbox, dislikes popular games such as Halo and Skyrim) but as long as the content is good, why should that matter? I personally agree with Dan over the previous points, which might just be why I prefer him over a lot of other gamers. Oh, and he also owns a Vlog channel in which he talks about his life every once in a while, and abuses his roommate, Wot. Links to some of his content below!

HIS GAMING CHANNEL (OfficialNerdCubed)
HIS VLOG CHANNEL (OfficiallyNerdCubed)
Nerd³ Plays… Cleverbot
Nerd³ Plays… Bully
Nerd³ Plays… Just Cause 2
Nerd³ Plays... Farming Simulator 2011

The Custard Cream vs. The Bourbon

Ahhh, the humble Custard Cream.... The leader of the biscuit status, with every bite a mystery. The apparent need for chocolate in a lot of people has meant the unruly demise of the custard cream to its brother: the Bourbon Biscuit. Really?

What are your views? (The views of many people may differ and thanks to our English teacher for the inspiration).