OK, first of all, I may have seen a man die outside my window yesterday. He was hit by something at a pedestrian crossing and five police cars and two ambulances came to the rescue, but it seemed they eventually gave up trying to resuscitate him, and after they put him in the ambulance it took at least ten minutes before they left for what I presume was the hospital.

Just thought I'd get that out of the way. And then I went back to running over a few pedestrians of my own, in Grand Theft Auto IV. More on that later.

On Sunday I went to a concert at the Royal Festival Hall; it was Mahler's first (symphony, not concert--that would have been weird.) The first part was...uhmm...something else than Mahler, and the four Italians in front of me left during the interval, leaving me with all the space I could wish for so that I could take in every movement from the orchestra. Fabulous. I realised it's been too long since I last went to something like that. We ended up applauding for at least five minutes (or, it just felt that way; when the conductor came out for the fourth time I thought "enough, already! My arms are really starting to hurt now!")

On Monday I went to see Fram at the National. I have to recommend it. Everyone should really go see this play. I felt elevated and inspired afterwards (and a little bit sleepy, but that's because it lasted for three hours.) The best thing about the National Theatre is that they don't necessarily have to be focused on the commercial value of everything showing there. This way they may experiment a bit, and Fram makes for some good theatre indeed. It has humour and wit, it discusses social issues and points fingers in both subtle and frank ways, it uses film, music and sound effects, and freshest of all, it is written in verse, features ballet and has a simple, but amazing set design. I was captivated, although the last scene of the first act was too long and complex after having already been sitting there for ninety minutes. Great performance by Sian Thomas in that scene, though, well worth it in the end. Fun to see Jeff Rawle on stage, too. I couldn't help but thinking Dennis Storhøi would have been perfect for the part of Nansen, though, but I am biased.

Then, on Tuesday, the postman arrived with my copy of Grand Theft Auto IV at 9:35. At 9:36 I took a picture of it (please note that I pre-ordered this 14 months ago), and at 9:37 I popped the BD into the PS3 and made myself a cup of tea and went to the loo while waiting for the game to install. At 9:42 "Starting a new game" showed up on my screen and I screamed a little "wheee!" to myself as I grabbed hold of the controller and became Niko Bellic. Great graphics (people still look "squary", but just imagine how far computer graphics have come in the past 30 years (or even just the past five--consider the water in Finding Nemo and fur effects in Monsters, Inc.) and I'm sure we'll soon be unable to distinguish computer-generated characters from live action film.) Great sound effects. Great music (although I do miss the opportunity of halting my modified Lowrider at a red light and rocking away to Killing in the Name, which I used to do in GTA: San Andreas after a long stint of defending my territory from rival gangs.) Great story (and not too bad voice acting, either.) I think it truly deserves the top marks it gets everywhere. This has really lived up to all the expectations and MORE! For me, I am amazed at the fact that I have played through about 20% of the game already without any major problems passing the missions so far, but then they have made it easier than its predecessors and the police aren't as annoyingly stubborn this time around.

Of course, a game like this stirs up some controversy (usually from the Bible Belt in America and other ultra-conservative areas of the Western world.) The newest is some mums against drink driving wanting to change the game's rating. The case is this: In the game you may drive after having been drinking all night. Let me just say I don't think the mums in question have even looked at the game. First of all, when you get drunk in this game, it is REALLY difficult to control the character. He really feels drunk and it is almost impossible to focus on anything. There is a CLEAR warning on the screen saying that since you have been drinking quite heavily, it would be better if you got a cab or wore it off. If you can manage to even get the guy into the car, I would imagine it would be even more difficult to drive the thing. I was sat at the back of a taxi, trying to point to the driver where we wanted to go, and it was so blurry I couldn't see a thing. People would most probably give up trying to drive altogether. This is actually a GREAT way of showing people how drink driving affects you, without your having to figure out for yourself (if you really are that stupid you haven't believed everyone telling you why drink driving is dangerous.)

The negative thing about GTA IV is that many users have had problems with the game freezing after a short period of time. When I read about this yesterday morning, I started biting my nails and sweating, but then remembered that hey, I had already managed to play the game for eight hours without any glitches, so I wouldn't need to worry so much! (Touch wood.)

I took some time off from the game last night to watch Blade Runner, though. I had bought the five-disc version (might as well) and got it in the post earlier in the day. I had seen it before at some point, but it must have been at least ten years ago. I am looking forward to watching the other four versions included now.

And for some bizarre reason I started watching this French time travel comedy on Monday, Les visiteurs, and I just couldn't turn the damn thing off. That was proper vegetating, that was. It was very well written (although the story was silly and the acting therefore over the top) and the plot was constantly driven forwards, not really leaving any room to breathe. It had Christian Clavier and Jean Reno (once again sporting the most horrible underwear--remember to watch the 2006 version of The Pink Panther) in it, and a perfectly cast Valérie Lemercier.

Well, about time I got myself some lunch. They gave me a new computer here today (I feel lucky,) 19" widescreen monitor and a lightning-fast processor is a great change from the 15" standard screen and seven-minute-startup-process I was used to on my old one. I am going to celebrate by eating a cookie and watching the second episode of Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts. If you are a Facebook user, please pay attention to this report about security there.

Labels: concert, dennis storhøi, film, gaming, music, personal, technology, theatre