Brasserie Park

Brasserie Park is a restaurant and party hall housed in a refurbished farm building on the edge of Park de Houtkamp near Leiden, and... a residential block. From the outside it looks quite vintage (as in old-fashioned), but once inside the hip and happening come flying toward you in a nice tight young blonde package. The furnishing's nice and post modern, which doesn't really fit the surroundings, but who's counting? There are large tables for big groups, a lounge area if you just feel like tapas and vino, and proper tables for small parties. The menu's great, and contains various exclusive dishes, which go above and beyond the standard grand cafe deals you would usually expect. A fine wine card accompanies the proceedings. Add to this timely service, and a very surprisingly decent price line, and I wholeheartedly recommend Brasserie Park in Leiderdorp for another visit.

Transform And Roll Out (Spoiler)

It's a very Zen-like moment when you hear the voice of Optimus Prime utter the opening monologue. Instantly you're taken back to a time when the world was a clear place. When Autobots were good, Decepticons were evil, every sentient being had a right to exist, and Sky Channel carried the single best cartoon of the eighties.

You hope the live action movie doesn't impact that romantic idea, and still you want it to be upgraded to 2007 standards. With all the CGI, professional soundtrack, Hollywood summer blockbuster production values, vast media exposure and multi-thread merchandise (toys, comics, video game) you can shake a stick at. And thankfully Transformers The Movie does exactly that.

I'm not going to reiterate the movie's plot, and instead we'll just focus on what made the movie great in the theater: the first encounter with Optimus, the interaction between Sam, Mikaela (and Bumblebee), actually the first encounter with Mikaela, the Camaro 2008, the Deceps Blackout, Barricade, and Starscream, Prime kicking ass and taking Bonecrusher's head, Megatron ripping Jazz in two.

You have to appreciate the humour in the movie, which is solid gold. Anthony Anderson doing the Matrix brings the funny. Bumblebee being better at picking up Megan Fox than Shia Leboeuf is just too much. And the Witwicky mother trying to be the understanding parent for an insecure teenager, simply hilarious.

There are some flaws though. The action scenes are MTV-style, as in much too fast to actually see what's going on. The movie moves intermittently from day to night even within the same scene, making it seem like either the scene in real-time would take really, really long, or the director couldn't get the actors to finish their grimaces in time. And like most cult franchises to movie adaptations, the hook of the original had to be Hollywood-ized to make it more tenable to the average movie-goer. Yes, Transformers is definitely a good movie to go to, even for someone who doesn't know TF from the past, but the Autobots and Decepticons don't get nearly enough screentime or dialogue to flesh out their characters, which is the point of the franchise anyway.

The problem is that for all the good things in the movie, it didn't need to be a Transformers movie. Apart from the names, the premise and some of the leitmotifs, anything in the movie could easily have been Go-Bots, or G.I. Joe. Or even the Ghostbusters.

• Will go to the movie again: no, probably not. Can't get the same reaction from the crowd on a post-premiere viewing.
• Will buy the DVD: absolutely. Day it comes out.
• Would go see a sequel: depends if they're gonna focus more on the Transformers themselves next time.

More Brain Training

Dr. Kawashima must be doing well for Nintendo: the game he inspired and gave his name to, Brain Age, was the killer app for the Nintendo DS, sold millions worldwide, and helped create a new gaming genre from the ground up.

Brain Age 2, or More Brain Training is the sequel to this title, and serves to cash in on the success of the DS and the edutainment/training game genre. It is delightfully similar to the original, making you feel instantly at home. All the controls are still there, the styling hasn't changed, and the sound is what you'd expect. And then of course you throw yourself into the training proper:

• you start off with a rock, paper, scissors game that takes quite a while to get used to. Especially if you've all been growing up to win rock, paper, scissors, it's strange to have to lose when Kawashima asks you to; it takes so much time, I was 68 when the game ended.
  
• then you can start doing some small exercises. Now after one day only three exercises are open to you: a maths exercise requiring you to fill in the missing operator, a spelling exercise where you have to form words from jumbled up letters, and a musical exercise, that asks you to tap the right chords to a song in time to the music. Another opens very soon, another maths exercise that requires you to give back correct change at a cash register, and one where you have to identify words spoken to you from the DS. I've not opened up any more exercises yet, but these are already challenging.

Compared to the original the exercises seem a little harder. It was terrible to see that I couldn't really do the jumbled letters test well, but maybe that's just a matter of recognition. The listening exercise is really, really hard, but that may be a technical limitation. The DS speakers are simply not that good.

Then again the original's exercises (the house occupants' one for example) proved to be no challenge at all after a while, were stale or boring (100 maths formulae, or the memory game) or were seriously flawed (the reading aloud one). So these are somewhat of an improvement.

Of course, we have to hold off on the final verdict until I've gone through the entire game, but for now, let's call it a 30 Euro luxury, instead of a necessity.

Guilty Pleasures

Considering it is a movie that's already been out for quite a while in other parts of the globe, and is not one of very high quality either, I may have been a little bit too anxious to see DOA: Dead Or Alive. But I did, and I'm actually glad I did.

Again this is one of those movies, where some Hollywood mogul apparently took notice of the revenue numbers video games generate nowadays, and decides it is a good idea to perhaps make a feature length motion picture out of a popular game. Usually this turns out crap (Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon, Street Fighter), or disappointing (Doom, Mortal Kombat, Wing Commander). Rarely does it turn out even remotely satisfying, let alone good. I'm afraid that purely on the criterion of quality, Dead or Alive is a movie in the brownish category.

But why am I not vilifying this movie then? Well... the video game Dead Or Alive is a fighting game pitting two characters against each other in a tournament. The big gimmick in this game however is that the characters are usually HOT women, even for a video game, with features that would fit nicely in a Playboy, FHM or Maxim pictorial.

Now the great idea here was to make this game into a movie. Forget that they tried to copy the game's plot into the movie, completely exposing the lameness of the story; Forget that they made Kevin Nash into a Hulk Hogan-lookalike (oooh the irony); Forget that they opened up every cliche in the book (nerd secretly in love with hot young broad with heart of gold; selfish thief turns noble (well... actually he doesn't); freaky businessman turns into freaky evil overlord); just enjoy the fine shapely bodies of Holly Valance, Sarah Carter, Jamie Pressly, Devon Aoki and Natassia Malthe (no, I don't know them either, but who cares?); enjoy them throwing punches and roundhouse kicks, in tasteful slow motion and Dolby Surround...

Okay, okay... in all seriousness... bad movie, but NICE visuals. Get the DVD and burn out the pause button.

N.B. Dare I mention? NOT a good date movie.

Road test: Cat-II Leasecars

If during the coming year you need an affordable, attractive, well-driving car to lease, you are not exactly spoiled for choice. It's pretty hard to find one that satisfies even two of the above-mentioned characteristics, let alone all three. Personally I like cars with a little more speed and explosiveness under the hood, but not at the cost of me having to sleep in the car, or driving a cardboard box.

It means I end up driving cars that fit these criteria:

• maximum car value of around EUR 26.000, which keeps the tax hit a bit manageable
  
• top speed around 200 km/h, acceleration 0-100 km/h around 10 s
  
• diesel engined-cars
• I have to like the look of the car inside, outside; and the drive has to be good, taking corners has to be brisk and sharp

At the moment two cars satisfy these criteria, the Seat Leon 1.9 TDI, and the Alfa Romeo 147:

The Leon by itself is a beautiful car, since the upgrade last year made it look more zesty. The streamlined look, the bubble-shaped back of the car all contribute to a great look. Inside the Leon is solid, if just a little bit uneventful. And the same goes for the ride: uneventful. The Seat drives solidly, but is very much like a Polo, a 206, a Clio i.e. unsurprising. It does exactly what you think it should do, it behaves completely according to your steering, and generally doesn't leave you hanging.

And that's a bad thing, because in that case I need to justify why I should pay EUR 26k for a car that drives pretty much like a car that's worth EUR 17k.

The Alfa drives a lot less predictable than the Seat. A 147 is a strange car that has a certain temperamente, and a mind of its own. For example it cannot make up its mind what temperature it is outside (5 degrees Celsius... no 3... now it's 4... oh now it's 0... err... 2, no wait 3... etc.). The exterior is beautiful, but in a more classic and chic way, rather than the brash and bold shape of the Leon. The interior is gorgeous at the first impression. However a closer look reveals that the gear shift stick is about as thick as a pencil, and the glove compartment is held together with two pieces of string.

Which one would I choose? I think I enjoyed the drive more in the Alfa than the Seat, and I think the extra nine thousand or so euros I can easily justify. Of course, I got suspicious about the over-reactive thermometer, the flimsy interior design, but in the end you have to know just one thing... which car pulls more women? Exactly...

Truly, to quote the guys from Top Gear, you cannot be a true petrol head unless you've driven - for any length of time - an Alfa Romeo. To experience the joy of driving it, the agony and frustration when you go back to the garage to have something or other fixed... this is what true motoring is all about...

...and besides I'm only gonna be driving it for a year or so.

P9UA: SonyE P990 Users Anonymous

We may need a P990 users association very soon. Here's what I found of this phone in the past month I've been using it:

• battery life is a mess when you turn all the features on (Wifi, camera, radio/mp3, screen light), so I end up turning everything off until I need it. Otherwise one phone-call will drain the P990. Luckily the phone can be powered up with the usb-cable, which I always carry around with my laptop, in a 15 kg laptop bag...
  
• turning the phone on takes longer than switching on my computer, which is damn long; luckily I don't need to turn off the phone that often...
• the battery cover is stuck to the phone with nails and staplers and superglue, and you have to call the green berets just to remove it. Pretty strange, since the cover itself is a flimsy sheet of plastic. Luckily the cover doesn't need to come off a lot. Unluckily upgrading the phone's firmware REQUIRES you to take your sim-card out, which REQUIRES you to remove the cover...
• the camera still is not too good in the dark, despite the flash light; also it locks up if it is too dark and you need to make adjustments. And if the phone locks up, you need to remove the cover...
• all the features you would ever need (RDS radio, business card reader, organizer, birthday calendar etc.) are in the P990, but to find them, you need a flashlight, climbing tools, a sherpa, a signed warrant, ropes and a GPS tracking system...
• the phone is highly intelligent: so much so, it knows when it is tired and turns itself off...

I've gotta hand it to SonyEricsson: the phone is quite good in what it does and offers. It also has some handy features (the slide lock for example is a brilliant idea), and some of the criticisms were unfounded (the reduced screen height isn't detrimental to the usability, and the keyboard is even quite good for my fingers). It is still however not as good-looking as the P900 (without keypad), and it is definitely not as user-friendly as a Nokia.

Sin City

Dit is toch een heftigere en zwaardere film dan ik dacht (thnx BVL). Groffer, bloediger, immoreler. Ik mag de stijl wel: niet alles hoeft honderd procent realistisch te wezen, en af en toe een grappig momentje.

Hij zal niet iedereen aanspreken, maar dat is met Pulp Fiction en the Matrix ook niet. Wel een dijk van een cult hit, en terecht wat mij betreft.

Masters of the Universe

You really want a truly bad game? Get Masters of the Universe on PlayStation 2.

Nostalgia is all well and good, but this is ridiculous. Where's all the tongue-in-cheek humour? Where's the over-the-top morality? And most important of all WHERE ARE TRAP JAW, RAM-MAN AND TEELA?

Sometimes, like dance covers of Madonna songs, re-designs of Datsuns and Godfather III, classics are best left alone. 

Sensation Black 2005 Double CD

Ik had weer eens zin om ouderwets te rammen, en ik hoorde laatst de theme van Sensation Black. Die beviel wel, dus toch eens gekeken of ik het hele setje kon nemen...

Het is wel okee... maar niet echt super. Sensation Black blijft eigenlijk net iets te lang doordreunen, zakt in waar je liever hebt dat ie tempo maakt, en ript eigenlijk teveel anderen off waar een eigen (of onbekendere) mix meer op zijn plaats zou zijn. Wel lekker dat ie meteen uit je speakers knalt: vanaf cd 1 track 2 is het accelereren geblazen en pas einde track 16 remmen ze af... om de bocht te nemen en daarna weer vol gas te gaan. De 'Matrix'-achtige background sprak mij ook wel aan, al was er geen touw aan vast te knopen.

Wel okee dus. Maar misschien had ik erbij moeten zijn.

Road Warriors

Today I saw the WWE DVD documentary for the Road Warriors. Now these guys used to be my childhood idols back in the early nineties, but even then I didn't realise they were as big as they were. This DVD fills in the gaps but also goes into the backstory of Hawk's problems, and it does so in great detail.

From time to time the WWE is quite able to pay respect to people that have meant something to the industry. I've seen that happen with Ric Flair, and I've seen it happen to Hawk on the DVD as well. Quite a touching scene, way more touching than I expected.

The WWE seems to me like a heartless promotion to work for, but they have their moments - such as the one on the Road Warriors DVD - where they show a lot of real emotion, and dignity and respect.

I'm glad I bought this DVD.