This is my sister Lucy presenting some publicity material for HOW TO BE, a film starring Robert Pattinson which she was the costume designer for.



Here is what happened: the PR company handling the film asked her to come in to be interviewed about her role on the set, so she did. They then said "that's great, but can you condense what you said to under a minute, and look at the camera?" She did. "Great, can you do it again, but also introduce this clip and mention this website where you can buy merchandise related to the film". I believe my sister's response was " ?___? "

They also gave her a script to read from: "working on 'How To Be' was a dream because I basically got to play dress-up with Robert Pattinson all day". She did not read it!

Basically they'd got her there under false pretences- they didn't want to interview her, they really just wanted her to work as a presenter for free, because their budget to promote the film is this: beans. She called them out on this and said she would happily do it, but they'd have to pay her properly for her services- so they did! Ha! Pretty smooth. I am proud of her!

She thinks the videos are terrible and that they make her look like the worst kind of sell-out, but I'm not so sure. I think she gets away with it. You can see the other videos she's in by clicking the links below:

part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KatNZctZ13Q

part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8TkMuymMAw

part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7aXx2gsbJ0

Hey! I have somehow managed to fall really sick in the last couple of days, to the point where doing anything other than being in bed is pretty much a special kind of hell, so I just decided: I am going use this time to finally play CAPTAIN BLOOD   

(Don't be put off by the Schwartzenegger clone in the preload image- watch the video from 1:25 and you'll get some kind of sense of what this game is)

 

It's a french Atari ST game from like 1988- it's got this unique, desolate atmosphere which has always made me feel compelled to try it out. Like the deep space you travel through, the game is cold, morally blank- the main character's a dying space pilot in a barren, mostly empty galaxy. He's hunting for his five clones so he can take their fluids to prolong his own life. You find these clones by talking to the alien lifeforms you might find hiding on the planets you encounter, and you talk to them in their own language- a pictogrammatically represented series of heiroglyphs the player must decipher and learn as he plays the game. The more you talk to people, the more of this language you learn and the more questions you can ask. 

But even once you're able to talk to and understand these creatures, nothing's easy- their motives are often obtuse, their information can be misleading. Apparently, the locations of some of Blood's clones can only be found out from the other clones, so sometimes you're forced to keep them alive- a lot of bartering and skullduggery goes on in this.
 
As a child this game baffled me!  True to its contents, the game seemed completely alien to my young self- the mechanics of the gameplay were foriegn to the point where I never actually discovered any alien lifeforms, I just flew around the galaxy destroying planets before I had a chance to see who lived on them (Captain Blood can do that). According to the youtube user comments, at least one kid in the 80's thought this game was really a link to the onboard computer of an alien craft, and for a dread week thought he had sent a command to destroy the earth. I can completely understand why- It has that kind of air about it.

So hey I am practically an adult now, and there's no other game that's come at all close to offering the same experience, so it's about time I bit the bullet and played it, I reckon. If you're similarly bedridden and you feel like joining in, that would be neato 'cause maybe we can use the comments section of this post to  trade hints and tips and whatnot, and not look at walkthroughs, and be 100% top draw dudes and ladies!

Download the game here!

Then, download an Atari ST emulator to play it on- for PC,  Linux  or Mac

I'm not 100% sure how to get the game to run, I will be going into this thing pretty blind myself but if you have trouble, ask for help in the comments maybe!

wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Blood_(video_game)

If you're in type 'I'm in' in the comments. OK LET'S KILL SOME FUCKIN' EVIL CLONES