I've seen two movies this week, and it's the first time we've gone out to the movies since the whole health-shenanigans went down.

On Wednesday night we saw a preview screening of Easy A. I didn't realise that it was really preview, in that they even had security and confiscated our mobile phones for the session so that no-one could record any of it (the movie isn't properly released for another three weeks).

The movie itself was really good. Although sometimes I feel like i'm getting a little old to watch high-school films, the good ones make it worth it (plus most of the time the actors portraying the high-schoolers are in their mid or late twenties anyway). The movie was very funny and witty, and dare i say it, even somewhat original.

The other movie we saw was Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. This was a really weird film, but 'weird' in a really good way.

From the awesome 8-bit Universal Studios opening right at the start of the movie, the comic-book/video-game theme of the movie was great (totally aimed at me demographic-wise!). I'm not that big of a fan of Michael Cera, but I guess he was ok in this role (but surely they could have cast someone better?). It's definitely worth watching as long as you don't have epilepsy.

Oh, and how many freaking Culkin's are there in acting?! I thought there was just Macaulay and the other younger one that was in Signs, but apparently there's another one in this movie too. The poor guys all look the same though; cute kids they were, but as adults... :S

The past weekend was the Australian federal election. Most were expecting some kind of result on the night, and a lot are confused that there still isn't one.

For the first time since WWII, the election has failed to provide a clear winner in terms of a party or coalition controlling the majority of the seats in the House of Representatives. Both Labor and the Coalition have been sitting on seventy-something seats, both short of the 76 needed, with all the power now looking likely to be controlled by 3 or 4 independent MPs.

It sure is interesting political times at the moment, as no-one really knows which major party is going to form the minority government, or if this can or will be sustainable in the short, medium, or long term over the next 3 year term. Many are predicting another election in the near future to try and get a more conclusive outcome.

To me this result shows how much both major parties are alike these days. Both steering a course straight down the centre of politics with only slight leanings to either side. Rather than trying to win over people leaning a certain way, they instead attempt to not alienate the major minority hovering around the middle.

The problem is that over the long term, in my opinion this eventually pleases nobody and disgruntles most.

So now we wait to see where the suddenly-powerful independents will cast their lot (at least in the short term). If one positive thing we can draw out of this is that since nearly all of the independents come from regional areas, a decent broadband policy is one of their top priorities. Hopefully no matter which side will form the Government, both with have a decent NBN or NBN-like plan that we can all look forward to, including our regionally-based compatriots which have suffered more than most under the internet tyranny that is a privatised Telstra.

You wouldn't have predicted before this election campaign that broadband would turn out to be a decisive difference between the two major parties. The past few days has seen it become a central issue separating the government and opposition.

It has also seen the geek vote made a whole lot easier. Whilst both major parties are really sickening me at the moment, the Coalition has done it more-so. Their plan to scrap the NBN rollout and rely on a mish-mash of outdated technologies to offer an alternative to the NBN is an absolute joke of a policy. Added to that they don't even see any sense in structurally separating Telstra, which is a monster that they created when they privatised it.

Why can people not see an massive problem in current state-of-affairs regarding Telstra and internet access? For example: in recently changing between two non-Telstra ISPs, I had to wait 2 weeks for a Telstra technician to do the physical swap at the exchange, but if I had been changing to Telstra it would have been done the next business day! What about all the poor people suck behind pair-gain or RIM-based connections that can't get decent and competitive internet in the first place?

Whilst a national fibre network is arguably not 100% 'needed' at the moment, in 5 or 10+ years it definitely will be. Ten years ago nobody had heard of Google, and there was no YouTube or Facebook. Imagine what the tweens of today are going to do with the internet in 10 years time! In 20 years the $43 billion investment to build the network will seem like a bargain for the type of rewards (let alone market openness and competition) that it will usher in.

I'm normally right-leaning in my political views, but I really can't support or endorse an alternative government with such a narrow view regarding such an important issue.

I'm very grateful that I live in Griffith which means my lower house vote won't really make much of a difference, otherwise I would have had a tough choice. For the Senate though, i'm increasingly leaning towards the Greens. Whilst I don't support all of their policies, most of them are common-sense standpoints (e.g. 'yes' on the NBN, 'no' on compulsory internet filtering). It's looking like the best result for most technological-minded people from this election will be a Labor Government with the Greens controlling the balance of power in the Senate.

This might surprise some, but I never got into StarCraft when it was released almost 12 years ago. Back then I was a huge Total Annihilation (TA) fan, and shunned similar types of RTS games like StarCraft and Dark Reign. In my opinion TA was a much better product, and I still stand by that.

Fast forward almost 12 years and here we are. Three years ago TA's spiritual successor, Supreme Commander (SupCom) was a worthy heir to the TA legacy, but this year with Supreme Commander 2 it's RTS ideals were betrayed with the dumbing down of the sequel to try and push for a more 'mass' audience (btw which i think I can say now they've failed at, judging by the reviews and sales figures).

But even though i'm a big TA/SupCom fan, there was no denying that the biggest RTS release of this year, and possibly the biggest gaming release in general, was going to be that of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (SC2). Quite why it took them this long to develop a sequel to the hugely popular original game (especially in Korea) astounds me.

Anyway, i wasn't interested in at all getting SC2, but following the release with all the marketing and friends saying how awesome it was, i succumbed and bought it myself (i'm a sucker for geek-marketing and peer-pressure).

After playing it for the past few days, i've got to say that i'm very underwhelmed at the moment.

Visually i think the game is very ordinary (although the cinematics are spectacular). Gameplay-wise it's fairly average too: whilst Supreme Commander actually advanced RTS gameplay, SC2 sort of feels like the same type of RTS that I played 12 years ago, and maybe that's what they were going for. For me the gameplay mechanics just feels old and outdated.

There are some fairly annoying gameplay quirks too: i don't know how many times i've had an SCV (builder unit) build himself into a corner and not be able to get out without destroying the buildings I just ordered him to build. Very lame. Also, the unit path trajectories and movement AI all seem very 'dumb' after playing SupCom and the SupCom2 demo.

The story is probably the only thing the game has going for it, and although the scripting and voice-acting can get very cliché and camp, the plot is quite immersive. The whole 'on the ship' stuff between missions reminds me very much of my beloved Wing Commander series.

So whilst I can see why SC fans are wetting themselves over this game, for me as an RTS fan it's a very average game.

I do still want to eventually get SupCom2, and i've also totally missed CNC4 which i'll have to pick up eventually too.

On Wednesday my ADSL transfer finally went through, and I am now connected to Internode as my ISP. It's been a long time coming, but i'm pretty happy that i'm finally on Internode now that they have a DSLAM in my exchange. It's probably the most geek-respected ISP in the country, and it means that I finally have unmetered access to Steam downloads, a good gaming network as well as a heap of other stuff.

I'm currently on the 'Easy Naked' plan, which means that i'm paying $60/month for 70GB of quota. This is significant because it's the first time in the history of me using the internet that i'm paying less dollars than the gigabytes i have quota for per month.

After a few years of value-stagnation, recently it seems that broadband value-for-money in this country is finally improving. Even Telstra themselves have just announced pretty dramatic improvements to their BigPond plans, which of course has once again undercut the wholesale rates they charge to other providers. It pretty much looks like a big customer grab before they (hopefully) lose all their power when (hopefully) the National Broadband Network (NBN) starts to really kick in. Expect them in court again with the ACCC really soon.

Now that the election has been called, the NBN is a pretty important issue for geeks like me. Whilst I really support the program, combining it with the other Labor policies like compulsory internet filtering and mandatory ISP monitoring is just ludicrous. Then again, scrapping it altogether is also ludicrous. So both major sides of politics have pretty much lost my support over this topic.

So come election day, probably for the first time i won't be voting for either major political party. I'm not sure who i'm going to vote for at the moment; luckily my vote won't really make a difference in the lower-house (KRudd's almost an almost guaranteed winner here), but my Senate vote is going to be an interesting decision.