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Alan Partridge is dead, originally uploaded by cloudsoup.

I went to see Steve Coogan live on Friday night. While it is great to see some one you loved perform, I was left a little deflated when it was all over. The SMH seems to agree with my assessment that the performance was less than stellar. My feeling is that he has spent the last 10 years as a million dollar actor he has lost the connection with the source of his characters. Paul Calf has always been gruff and uncouth, but it now felt like Coogan was doing and impersonation of some one else doing the character, and not very well. However his Portuguese crooner character Tony Ferrino, which I hadn’t seen much of in the past was very successful.

Nuke 3, originally uploaded by Pierre J..

Following Barack Obama’s call to abolish all nuclear weapons, there is an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald stating :

Even a limited regional nuclear war involving 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs – just 0.03 per cent of the explosive power of the world’s nuclear arsenal, would kill tens of millions of people and cause severe climatic consequences for a decade or more.

Cooling and darkening – with shorter growing seasons, less rainfall and increased ultraviolet radiation.

Well there’s you answer. While you are getting rid of your nuclear weapons, set off a few in a remote desert some where and solve global warming problem at the same time, Sorted! Just don’t forget your sun screen though.

Update : Looks like Wired is on the same wavelength as me at the moment with this post : 7 (Crazy) Civilian Uses for Nuclear Bombs

I missed it by 2 days, but 10 years ago, on the 31st of March 1999, The Matrix had it’s US theatrical release. I can’t believe it has been that long. 1999 was also the year of The Phantom Menace, The Sixth Sense and Fight Club’s. In my mind it was a high water mark year for blockbuster movies of quality (Phantom Menace non-withstanding) that wasn’t reached again until a few years ago.

I still remember the absolute electric feeling of walking out of the cinema after the first time I saw the Matrix on the big screen. That are scenes in The Matrix that other movies, including it’s own sequels, have tried to replicate, but never matched. People obviously point to the bullet time effect, however the lobby fire fight, kung-fu training and helicopter is still awesome today.

So will this year be remembered as well in 10 years, there are an interesting crop of movies on the slate, The Watchmen has already had a go (I enjoyed it), we are going to have a few months filled with Terminator Salvation, Star Trek, Wolverine, Transformers and G.I. Joe so hopefully there will be one or two in there.