I made a journey to the cinema last week upon my return from Reading to see Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I had seen the trailer and was instantly intrigued, I thought it looked a film that somehow captured the feel of Viewtiful Joe, a game originally released on the Nintendo Gamecube. I purposely avoided reading or watching anything about it, admittedly not that hard when in a field, so that I knew very little apart from the basic concept of Scott Pilgrim having to defeat the seven evil exes of Ramona Flowers.

I left the cinema some 2 hours or later amazed. If you haven’t seen this yet, I urge you to go and watch it. Sure there is homage to plenty of classic video games in there that the nerds like myself will pick up on, and experience an extra layer of humour from, but there is a great film there to enjoy for everyone else as well. It gets across how complicated a new relationship can be, whilst mixing in some ridiculous action sequences using a Batman (I’m thinking of the Adam West 1960’s series) ‘comic book’ style.

In some more Gadget related news, it’s the Autumn Fair next week so I’m sure we’ll have loads of great new and exciting gadgets to tell you about that will hopefully be with us very soon!

With the August Bank Holiday weekend done and dusted for another year we now enter what most consider to be the end of summer. The schools go back, and thoughts start drifting ever more towards Christmas, and the New Year period. That’s the last I’ll mention about Christmas, for a while at least, as it does seem to sneak up on us earlier and earlier every year, but the end of Summer brings me nicely to my next point. When I was listening to the radio this morning I learnt that on ITV tonight is the last ever episode of The Bill.

For those of you who don’t know, and if not you must surely not have watched television at all for the last 27 years, The Bill is a police drama that debuted on our screens back in 1983 under the title Woodentop as part of a series of one-off dramas. It impressed so much that a series was commissioned and screening began in 1984 under the name The Bill. 26 years, and many revamps and iterations later what has become the UK’s longest running procedural police drama bows out tonight. The Bill is not alone as I discovered later on today, as over the weekend we also saw the last ever episode of Last Of The Summer Wine, after 37 years.

Another story in the news over the weekend however shows that it may be the end of the road for Last Of The Summer Wine, The Bill, and the summer of 2010, but Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is still going strong. The Mousetrap is one of those theatre productions that I think I must go and see, whenever I hear it mentioned, and then promptly forget about a week or so later having not got round to booking tickets. Mousetrap was hitting the headlines this weekend as Wikipedia published the ending and revealed the killer. This may not seem like a big deal, until you realise that at every performance of the play each member of the audience is requested not to reveal the killer so to preserve the mystery of the play. I myself shall be avoiding the Wikipedia page and look to visit the theatre to see it sooner rather than later.

I know Dirk has already mentioned our end of summer sale however this week we’ve added more items so make sure you take a look.

I’ve spent most of the week photographing lots of new products that’s arrived, as always you can check them out in our what’s new section.  One new item that has proved to be a big hit here at the tower is the Heli Racer.

It’s a remote control car and helicopter combo, the car has been liken to the Batmobile in Batman begins by some of the guys in the office.  Judging by the reaction its received I’m sure it’ll be a big hit this Christmas, you can find further details on the site.

Finally we’ve a new cart promo today. You can get a set of Mug Shots for only £6.95 when purchasing any other item, normal price £9.95.

Well that’s me pretty much done for another week. This weekend I’m going climbing and camping somewhere near Tunbridge Wells.  I’ve got my Musuc sleeping bag and Dynamo LED Light packed, fingers crossed there’s no rain!

Have a great weekend and I’ll catch up with you next week.

M x

Outside of Gadgets Towers if you get a chance to make a journey outside of town and away from light pollution tonight, make sure you cast a glance skywards as tonight, and tomorrow are set to be the height of the Perseid Meteor Shower.

You may also have been entertained, as I was earlier in the week, by the story of Jenny who quit her job via Email with the aid of some photos and a dry wipe board. A couple of days later the whole story was revealed to be a hoax dreamt up by The Chive. There were however several large News agencies that went ahead and reported this as fact, which only goes to show you shouldn’t believe everything you read or see online.

Hope you all have a great weekend folks and I’ll leave you with some dating tips from one of the starts of Toy Story 3, if you haven’t seen this already, do so.

While it isn’t a particularly challenging piece of cinema, it is what it sets out to be, which is just plain old good fun, like the original TV series. Both Dirk Benedict (Templeton ‘Face’ Peck), and Dwight Schultz (Captain H. M. ‘Howling Mad’ Murdock) have cameos in the new film, as well as Mr T. reportedly also being offered a cameo, but turning it down.

What did I think? I liked the new film, I would view it as something different to the TV series, and wouldn’t be surprised to see some sort of sequel. The characters were all different enough to the portrayals in the original TV series that I don’t think there is too much of a question about who is better Peppard/Neeson, Mr T./Quinton Jackson etc. Although I would liked Murdock to have been a bit more mad than he is in the film.

One thing I did think was missing from the film was the seemingly obligatory scene in almost every episode of the TV series where they get locked into a warehouse, garage or similar, and end up making some sort of heavily armed armoured vehicle with, seemingly, little more than and old car and a blow torch, though there is an element of this.

It’s certainly worth a watch in my opinion, but if you haven’t seen the original TV series I’d go back and watch that first!

I have decided that since it’s been out in cinemas for about two weeks it’s probably about time that I went to see Toy Story 3. All the reviews I’ve seen for it have praised it highly, and all my friends who have seen it say it is the best film of the three and a great way to finish off the trilogy. As long as it isn’t as poor as Shrek 3 I think I’ll be happy.

As it was so very lovely and sunny over the weekend I decided it would be the optimum time to go and sit in a darkened room and watch the new Predators film. Now, I like Robert Rodriguez as a director. I think that film like From Dusk Till Dawn, and Planet Terror are brilliant, not taking themselves too seriously, and the former proving that George Clooney can actually act, unlike his turn in Batman and Robin. Unfortunately I was convinced that after the travesties that were the Alien Vs Predator films, that this could well turn out to be a similar disappointment.

It was with some relief that I watched the film and, although it is in large parts basically a remake of the original Predator, I was suitably entertained. I won’t go into detail in case you haven’t seen it yet, but I would recommend it for fans of the first two. Fans of the AVP films, if there are any, would do well to watch the original Predator film, as I can’t believe anyone has, and liked those atrocities.

Having not been for a good 18 months or so, I was more than a little rusty, but soon got back into the swing of things, excuse the pun, and managed to win the final game. Ok, so our scores weren’t particularly high, but you raise your game to match those you are playing with, right?

Anyway, the point was made in the Top Golf Facebook Group that with this simple and unobtrusive technology, FIFA could have proved within a matter of seconds that the Frank Lampard goal that never was against Germany was a goal, and would have stood.

Doubtless of course we would still have gone on to lose the game as those wily Europeans undid our, less than wily, defending with even just a hint of pace. FIFA have said they will be investigating options again after the tournament, despite previously saying they would not consider using technology of any sort within the game. Now, call me cynical, but I can’t help but feel they will wait for the original furore to die down and then stick resolutely to their guns on that one.

Wandering around the internet today I came across a target=_blank>Nokia blog which is having a bit of a pop at Apple and the iPhone after, customers reported having serious problems with their shiny new iPhones dropping calls. This was at first thought to be just the new iPhone 4, but some reports are saying it is due to a new piece of software in the 4.0 operating system. Still, no publicity is bad publicity right…? After all it has us all talking about it again, and you would expect the issue to be resolved within the next few days.

I like to imagine in the picture below that Spock is Nokia/Microsoft/A. N. Other of Apple’s rivals, and the new iPhone is the guy in the red uniform. Not because I dislike Apple, but just because it makes me giggle.

I was in Bournemouth over the weekend for a stag do, enjoying the sunshine, and of course the local hostelries! Mandy is out of the office this week having a break on a canal boat, and no doubt enjoying soaking up all this glorious sunshine we are having at the moment!

I know I’m certainly hoping they will find themselves galvanised, like the England rugby union squad was after their humbling defeat to South Africa in the group stages. If you remember they then went on to reach the final, and only narrowly missed out on becoming the first team to retain the Webb Ellis trophy, not bad for a team everyone had written off before the last game of the group stages is it?

Then there is the history behind our relatively successful run in the 1990 World cup after a difficult, and not dissimilar start. I was sent this by a friend today, and I think that it’s just the sort of thing that would get me motivated, and ready to give my all for my country (if I wasn’t already), so I sincerely hope that the England team have something equally as motivating to send them out to the most important 90 minutes of this world cup (so far) tomorrow afternoon.