Sunday 29 November 2009

Christmas Tips (and Alistair)

This year I thought I'd help you, my dear internet consumers, to enhance your festive shopping with some tips for great presents and some discounts to go with them.

Here are a few items from Play.com that I think can recommend. Also, if you head over here http://www.vouchercodes.co.uk/play.com then you'll find some discount codes to save you a bit of cash (£5 off if you spend £50 can't be sniffed at) so you can buy presents for yourself. Not that I've done that...

First up is the entire run of The Wire. At just under £50 it works out at £10 per season. There's a lot of critical hype for this show so I won't add to it, other than to say that I thought it was pretty damn good.


Football Manager 2010
is only £17.99 right now. I love managing small men and making them run up and down whilst violently kicking a sphere, if that sounds like your kind of thing then check it out.

My favourite film of the year was Crank 2. Shut up. It was very, very silly and I loved it. It's now only £5.95. You'll believe a man can not only survive without a heart but will, in fact, prosper without one.

Borderlands is a game that crosses the compulsiveness of the RPG with the intense twitch play of the FPS. The resulting effect is a form of crack that can't be easily resisted by certain gamers. Only Dragon Age: Origins weened me off it. I've linked to the PC version (the gentleman's gaming format) but I believe the other formats are also reduced.

The Inbetweeners is a guilty pleasure of mine, it's crude and vile at times but it makes me laugh and I guess that's all that matters. It's only £10 for the first two series.

Hey look, it's the good Star Wars films. Before the dark times, before the prequels.

I once watched all of the extended Lord of the Rings movies back to back over the course of one day. I haven't watched those movies since. Still, before I overdosed on Tolkien I thought that Peter Jackson's adaptation improved on a series of books that I thought were pretty dull. Sean Bean gets a dramatic slow motion moment, Viggo Mortensen became a credible action hero and Elijah Wood found a role that suited him perfectly. It's £17.99 for about 6000 hours of DVD footage.

You know who will always be cool? Indiana Jones. Forever.

Marty McFly used to be cool when I was 8. His style may have dated but Back to the Future is still a fantastic movie and a great example of how to make time travel fun without being confusing. The trilogy can be had for £12.99.

Do you have to buy a present for someone you hate? Someone that you are forced to buy a present for and hand over to them with a smile painted on your face? Well may I direct you toward the Resident Evil boxed set? It's doubly evil as another movie is due soon so the boxset is not only terrible, it'll be out of date within 12 months. Mwahahahaha.

Zombies. Yawn. Played out. Here are the original Romero movies. Y'know, if you still like zombies despite geekdom's attempt to completely run them into the ground (ho ho).

I love Blade Runner. I love it so much that I bought this special edition which contains multiple versions of the same movie. Tons of extras and it comes in a tin which means it's extra special.

Bill Bailey is great. Here are all his stand up shows for those that love the long haired musician's surreal take on Kraftwerk and trouser presses.

30 Rock is brilliant and season one only costs £7.99. A sitcom about the writing team behind a sketch show. Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan give fantastic comedy performances but it's Alec Baldwin (yes, Alec Baldwin, I was suprised too) who steals the show. Season two is £9.99. You can buy them both as a boxset but that costs £29.99.

The Venture Brothers is an animated series that is consistently fantastic. It parodies the old Hanna Barbera action cartoons of the 60s while delivering scripts that are intelligent and very well voiced by the cast. It's only £7.99 and it's well worth a look. If you don't like it we can't be friends.

I'll leave it at that, I'm sure you all have your own ideas for presents but I hope my tips will save you some cash or prod you in the right direction.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.