Dishonored is set in the industrial city of Dunwall, where Corvo Atano, a bodyguard to the Empress, is framed for her murder and forced to become an assassin to seek revenge on those who conspired against him. I only saw the trailer of Dishonored a few weeks back, but it looks like it could be an interesting game:

Looks pretty cool, right? It’s got a bit of a steampunk meets Assassin’s Creed vibe going on, from what I can tell. There’s also a gameplay trailer that you can watch here, which shows the more darker elements of the game (love the creepy version of the Drunken Sailor song).

Dishonored will be released on October the 12th in the UK, but there are a couple of special bonuses if you preorder the game at certain stores. All pre-order bonuses come with 500 bonus coins, an “unhidden” book, an in-game statue and three special powers. Amazon offers the Acrobatic Killer pack, ShopTo.Net the Backstreet Butcher pack, Tesco the Shadow Rat pack and Game/Gamestation the Arcane Assassin pack.

I just started reading The Name of The Wind last weekend and so far it’s great. It’s beautifully written and it’s one of those books that once I start reading I can’t put down. Sadly I haven’t found enough time this week to read, otherwise I think I would have finished it by now!

The book starts off in a small town in a small inn with a quiet innkeeper called Kote. You soon find out though that he hasn’t always been just an innkeeper, but the assassin/thief/magician/who-knows-what-more Kvothe (pronounced like Quothe). Once a scribe and chronicler arrives in town, Kvothe starts telling his story…

The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is available on Amazon.co.uk for £6.29 and on Amazon.com for $11.56.

One of my favourite new shows last year was Once Upon A Time. I initially thought it was a little bit too cheesy, but I ended up really liking how it managed to balance “fairytale world” story lines with “our world” story lines. It also had one of the more surprising season finales, and I’m so excited to see what season 2 will bring.

A new trailer came out for season 2 and it looks like it could be great!

BEWARE: After the video there’ll be spoilers for season 1 (if you haven’t seen season 1, go and watch it!)

It’s going to be interesting to see how everyone deals with actually knowing who they are now! I also wonder what this means for the fairytale characters who had powers. Regina regains her powers, but does that mean Red/Ruby and the fairies do too? Would be awesome to see Red shift in this world too!

I love that Belle (Emilie de Ravin) is now a season regular; Belle has always been my favourite Disney character and I loved her episodes with Rumpelstiltskin last year. Let’s hope she’ll make old Rumpy a bit more loveable. We also get our first glimpse of some new characters: I noticed Hook and Mulan, I think Hook will make an awesome bad guy! From what I’ve heard we’ll also be seeing the Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty this year.

Get your tickets now! For one week only from September 21st the BFI IMAX and several other cinemas will be showing Indiana Jones and The Raiders of The Lost Ark, to celebrate the upcoming Blu-ray release of all Indy movies. It’s been completely digitally remastered, so I’m kind of curious to see how it turns out on the big IMAX screen. The BFI IMAX recently got a digital projector installed to be able to show IMAX DMR movies too, but I haven’t seen any films with that myself yet.

Now I can’t get the theme song out of my head! Will you be going to see it at the IMAX? Tickets for the BFI IMAX are now available on their new Odeon ticketing system.

Awesome:

Two weeks ago I got to visit Berlin for a couple of days. I have quite fond memories of Berlin; I previously went in 2007 for a BarCamp and a conference and had a great time then (and met loads of awesome people).

This time around I was there for Campus Party Europe, a large unique tech event. Campus Party started originally in South America and from all accounts I’ve heard the original events are really good. It’s a bit of a mish mash of an event; it’s a weird mix of conference, hackday, LAN party, with thousands of attendees.

This was the first time it was held in Germany and they had managed to get an awesome venue: Berlin Tempelhof, a huge old airport in central Berlin. The event took place in most of the terminal building, which is shaped as a huge crescent spanning 1.2 km. In the middle section most of the hacking/presentations took place, while in the outer arms tons of tents were set up for attendees to camp in (luckily I got to stay in a hotel, camping is really not my thing).

I was there specifically to help out with the Think Big workshop. For 2 days, groups of 18-25 year olds worked on defining and designing their own mobile app ideas. I was there as one of the mentors helping out and explaining stuff to the groups. It was a lot of fun, and the ideas the participants came up with were great.

Because I was helping out with the workshop though, I didn’t get to experience much of everything else that was going on at Campus Party. I didn’t really have time to go to presentations or to work on a hack. It seems like it could be a great event, but I didn’t really get that feeling I most of the time get at great hack days, like Over The Air or Mashed. At those, you always get inspired to start working on something, just by the pure vibe of everything thats going on around you. I didn’t get that with Campus Party. I’m guessing that might have to do with just how large and vast the venue was, but you just didn’t get that feeling of “cool stuff is being created here”.

I did have a great time though, and it was awesome to be back in Berlin again. Keep an eye out for another post one of these days with my photos of sightseeing in Berlin!

Ooh, the latest October Daye book came out yesterday! I really enjoyed this series from Seanan McGuire and the previous book was just soooo good. I can’t wait to get my hands on this one!

Here’s the description from Amazon:

It’s been almost a year since October “Toby” Daye averted a war, gave up a county, and suffered personal losses that have left her wishing for a good day’s sleep. She’s tried to focus on her responsibilities—training Quentin, upholding her position as Sylvester’s knight, and paying the bills—but she can’t help feeling like her world is crumbling around her, and her increasingly reckless behavior is beginning to worry even her staunchest supporters.

To make matters worse, Toby’s just been asked to find another missing child…only this time it’s the changeling daughter of her fellow knight, Etienne, who didn’t even know he was a father until the girl went missing. Her name is Chelsea. She’s a teleporter, like her father. She’s also the kind of changeling the old stories warn about, the ones with all the strength and none of the control. She’s opening doors that were never meant to be opened, releasing dangers that were sealed away centuries before—and there’s a good chance she could destroy Faerie if she isn’t stopped.

Now Toby must find Chelsea before time runs out, racing against an unknown deadline and through unknown worlds as she and her allies try to avert disaster. But danger is also stirring in the Court of Cats, and Tybalt may need Toby’s help with the biggest challenge he’s ever faced.

Toby thought the last year was bad. She has no idea.

Ashes of Honor by Seanan McGuire is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.03 and on Amazon.com for $7.99.

I’m really liking these dress designs from etsy store Nerd Alert Designs. Some of them I can imagine just wearing any day, but a couple are definitely more costumey and aimed at the cosplayer crowd. They’re still awesome designs though!

Cocktail Hour on the Death Star – $90

This is my favourite design; the cut of the dress looks great plus the little Darth Vader helmets look so cute!

Rainbow Brite dress – $90

I don’t actually remember ever watching Rainbow Brite, but I did use to have a View-master reel of it, which I loved. This dress is just adorable:

You ARTOO Cute In This Dress- $90

Another adorable dress! The belt isn’t included, but it fits perfectly.

The star of the BLOCK party – $90

I only wish the colours of this dress were a bit more vibrant.

The Unbirthday Dress – $90

You can’t really see the details in this photo, but the skirt consist of text from Alice in Wonderland with illustrations from it lining the bottom (see this photo for a closeup).

The Ash dress – $125

I love this dress! There’s a pocket on the left side dress turning your hand instantly into a CHAINSAW hand!

Ewok Dress – $150

Not something I’d consider wearing, but it does look great.

Yesterday I attended the first day of the UK Cinema Showcase, previewing some upcoming movies. I’d been stuck in the cinema for most of the day, so hadn’t realized that just around the corner the Piccadilly Circus Circus was going on. For the entire day (well, from 1pm on) Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street and Piccadilly Street had 143 circus performances of 48 different acts by 33 companies with 247 performers!

I got out the cinema at about 8pm and thought I could take the tube from Piccadilly Circus; I had no idea what I was walking into. There was a huge crowd around Piccadilly Circus and music was playing loudly. I initially didn’t understand what was going on until I looked up: above the square there were several zipwire lines and people dressed as angels doing acrobatic acts. This video gives a good idea of some of the bits I saw:

The finale though was the most amazing! They’d already released some feathers during the performance, but in the finale they went all out: tons of feathers got thrown over the crowd and burst from canons on the side. It was just raining feathers everywhere. And to be in the middle of it all was so surreal:

I now really wished I had seen more of the performances during the day. But experiencing that finale? WOW.

The Last Stand

Arnie is back! This looks like it could be a lot of fun. It’s the first English movie from director Kim Jee-woon, who did A Tale of Two Sisters and The Good, The Bad and The Weird (which I still need to watch). Release Date: 18 January 2013 (US), 25 January 2013 (UK)

Butter

In small-town Iowa, an adopted girl discovers her talent for butter carving and finds herself pitted against an ambitious local woman in their town’s annual contest. This could be interesting; it’s got Hugh Jackman and Olivia Wilde in it, so there’s no doubt I’m not going to see it. I’m not sure about Jennifer Garner’s character though. I used to love her in Alias, but since then I’ve just found her annoying in everything else. Release Date: 5 October (US)

The Impossible

I hand’t heard about this movie previously, but wow, that’s one powerful trailer. It’s about a family (Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, and three kid actors) who get split up during the 2004 tsunami. Release Date: 21 December (US), 4 January (UK)

Playing For Keeps

A former sports star (Gerard Butler) who’s fallen on hard times starts coaching his son’s soccer team in an attempt to get his life together.

10 Years

This trailer made me realize that it’s 10 years ago I graduated from high school. I wonder how it would be to see everyone form high school again after 10 years. What is everyone doing now? Release Date: 14 September 2012 (US)

The To Do List

A recent high-school grad (Aubrey Plaza) feels pressured to become more sexually experienced before she goes to college. Release Date: 2013 (US, UK)