I JUST SPOKE TO DAVID TENNANT ON ABSOLUTE RADIO! LIFE: HAS BEEN MADE.

Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?...

Orson Scott Card (b.1951)

-21 High-Brow, -25 Violent, 9 Experimental and 5 Cynical!

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The Monkey Island videogames for PC are the best of all time. They're hilarious and addictive pirate adventure games, which involve insult sword fighting, banjo duelling and puzzle solving. They chronicle the adventues of pirate-in-the-making Guybrush Threepwood, his love Governor Elaine Marley, the villanous zombie pirate LeChuck and a voodoo priestess.

There's four of them, the first two with midi music and pixelated graphics (The Secret of Monkey Island and Lechuck's Revenge), the third one called The Curse of Monkey Island with brilliant 2D animation (see Guybrush in my icon), voice actors speaking the lines and a fantastic soundtrack and the fourth one, Escape from Monkey Island, had 3D animation and was also available for Playstation. Here's an example of the gameplay from The Curse of Monkey Island.
Looks like for this fifth one they're going for 3D animation in a cartoonish style again. Here's a trailer. Got proper chills when the brilliant theme tune came on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHojfwdLucI



They were such a huge deal for me when I was a kid. I still love them so much I've been using this what I thought was a very retro icon, with no idea that there were plans to come out with a new one.
Anyway, I know at least one person on my f-list is a fan of Zelda, so maybe you'd like to try out this adventure game?

ESPAÑOL
Sé que los juegos de Monkey Island también salen en Español, así que  esten al tanto! El quinto juego de Monkey Island, contando las aventuras del pirata Guybrush Threepwood, estará pronto en las tiendas!

Fromsupasass:

 This is my reply. I typed it on Monday night:

Decalog 3, Consequences

"a screeching, grinding roar, somewhere between a raging elephant and a protesting asmathic" Continuity Errors, Steven Moffat

2006 Annual

"tremendous groaning sound" Doctor vs. Doctor, Gareth Roberts

"terrible wheezing and groaning" What I did on my Christmas Holidays, Steven Moffat

2007 Storybook

"a really really strange noise like an old car engine" Cuckoo-Spit, Mark Gatiss

"a gusting, grinding noise that rose and fell like old winds grating across one another" Once Upon a Time, Tom MaCrae

"unearthly noise [...] a scraping, rasping noise[...] the noise had sounded like a hundred coffin lids creaking open..." Gravestone House, Justin Richards

2008 Storybook

"a terrible, wheezing, groaning sound, ancient engines straining" The Body Bank, Gareth Roberts

"a noise of- what, engines? Or something like coughing?" The Box Under the Tree, Robert Shearman

"vworping brouhaha" and "wheezing, groaning noise" Zombie Hotel, Paul Magrs. The former also used in his novel: 'Sick Building'.

"roar of ancient engines" The Iron Circle, Nicholas Briggs

2009 Storybook

"A short of trumpeting. Rising and falling like a rusty engine turning over. Like Erkki's old car with the chains on the tyres" Cold, Mark Gatiss

"what sounded like a herd of trumpeting elephants and the creaking of rusty chains" Island of the Sirens, Keith Temple

"a noise like a strangulated elephant [...] the wheezing of ancient engines" Hold Your Horses, Nicholas Pegg

I don't pay much attention to these competitions. For me, the best thing about Carnival is dressing and joining the Parade with my friends. In the Parade in Gran Canaria, the floats have music and the people riding them throw around sweets and people from the crowd get to join the procession and dance behind the floats. There's a huge amount of floats. Definetely more than sixty. Probably more than a hundred. The Parade in Tenerife follows a much shorter route, has less floats, and people can only watch the Parade, rather than join it.

When I was young, I would only watch the Parade from the side as well, but since I turned 14 every year I've been joining the procession and following it to the end of the line. I don't know how many kilometres that is, but it's a 15 minute bus journey.

The ground ends up getting sticky with crushed sweets. People push around carts where they stash their drinks. I end up meeting friends whom I only seem to see at Carnival and New Year's Day, so I've forgotten what they are like when sober. Most of the guys dress as women, often skimpily. The floats move very slowly, so we often move from one to the other to find the one with the best music. There are alot of people, so we need to hold hands as we move though the crowds.

Speaking of which, I got to watch Slumdog Millionaire and loved it. It's based on the book Q&A which I had read about ages ago in Newsweek and wanted to read. Should be much more easily available now. I'll see how much it fetches for at play.com or bookdepository.com (free worldwide delivery!). I was shattered by some of the things shown in it, such as the kid who was blinded to collect more money as a beggar for the mafia. But the movie balanced the dark with the light very well, and is now one of my favourite movies ever. I've downloaded a making-of documentary that I'll be watching with my sister tonight.

Slumdog Millionaire prompted lots of discussions about India and recollections from my parents. My Dad told me of the 28-day spiritual journey he did just before marrying my Mum. My Mum told my of visiting the Taj Mahal when she was young, before the insides were stripped of their jewels. She said she would love to take me there one day. Well, Mum, I would love to go! The first time my sisters went to India was to buy stuff for their weddings, they didn't really get to see anything. I don't think I'll have an Indian wedding if I ever do get married, but that's another discussion. So far I've been very lucky with all the travelling I've done in my life. It's my favourite thing in the world; setting foot on another country, and looking at the skies to see the stars positioned somewhat differently.
 

Also, heads up: Venus is very bright these days, and tonight 28th Feb is the best day to witness it forming a very aesthetic conjunction with the Moon.

These days I'm studying for my new subjects for the year, preparing a presentation for this year's Congress of Physics Students (for which last year my poster on the physics of time travel won the audience choice award) and whilst I wrote this I got a fun idea for a fandom post. Stay tuned.

I told myself I would stop after episode 6, maybe 7 (exams!), but after seeing this I don't know if I'll be able to restrain myself! AAaaand I've given up avoiding spoilers for the finale XD
I took screencaps of the trailer and grouped the ones that go together. My primary concern was to catch details from the background or the Doctor's and Donna's clothes so I knew which images belonged to the same episode.
I noticed some  VERY interesting things. Images intersped with my brief observations.

Spoilers for Series 4 of Doctor Who, episodes 8 onwards begin now. 60 scaled-down images. If you want to them full-size, go to their url address (right-click on image, view its 'Properties', copy-and-paste url on to address bar). You are free to snag and use, but don't hotlink, please.

 Basically, I loved 'The Doctor's Daughter' and went mad making icons :)

Preview:

Feel free to take, and even edit, with credit.

I'm sadly enthusiastic about comments XD

Visit my previous icon post here.