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Update

Mar 122009

I finished by temp job last week so I’ve been frantically looking for something else to tide me over until I (eventually) get a runner job somewhere. I don’t think its much of a secret that I hate job hunting. It’s just the most tedious and soul destroying activity known to man – especially when you have Film Studies in your degree title and have lived in Brighton for two years where the only work experience you can get is call centre or shop based. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with either of those it’s just that in London it doesn’t really make you stick out from the crowd.

Anyway, this is all a little melodramatic as it looks like I’ve managed to find something for the next six weeks… in a bank call centre… oh the joy. I’m just waiting for them to get back to me but they said they were pretty sure I would get it as, among other things, I scored second best out of everyone on a typing test. Quite surprising considering the amount of typos in this blog!

In other news I got a hair cut.

It’s still fairly long but I do have a slight guilty feeling about giving in to the man… I’m hoping that it being a bit neater will impress prospective job people… we’ll see.

Last weeks fun

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Mar 032009

So we had a very fun week last week with seeing Richard Herring last week at the Leicester Square Theatre and The Cure at the O2.

Richard Herring used to be on T.V. with his then double act partner Stewart Lee. They had two shows over a few years called Fist Of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Not many people seem to remember them but I was a huge fan even though I was only about 12 or so years old. After these programmes they seemed to fall into obscurity. Being fairly young and living in Milton Keynes I didn’t realise that they continued on in the stand up scene and I was blissfully unaware that Stewart Lee was behind the infamous Jerry Springer – The Opera.

Fast forward about ten years and we get to 2008 and I’m flicking through iTunes looking for podcasts to listen to on my tube journey to work and back. I come across The Collings and Herrin Podcast and make the mental link (Richard Herring has a thing about pronouncing ’in’ with ‘ing’ such as Frankingstein and skelington). Needless to say I was thoroughly impressed and listening to Richard Herring’s clever, offensive and sometimes brilliantly childish humour after ten years was great fun. After having a look through his website I found that he was doing a run at a West End theatre.

I finally got round to booking tickets and we went last Tuesday and had a hysterical night. The show is called ‘The Headmaster’s Son’ and looks at Richard’s teenage life as the headmaster’s son (funnily enough). The young Richard compares himself to Anne Frank and reminds us all how it feels to be a moody teenager. He’s currently touring and if you can get to a show I highly recommend it.

Thursday found us over in Greenwich at the ridiculously gargantuan tent that is the O2. After having a few drinks and missing two of the support bands that we had no interest in seeing we thought we should at least give Franz Ferdinanz a shot. You’ll be pleased to know that we sat through two songs before we went out to get some beers. Most of this time was spent discussing how scared we were at being so high. We were in the upper tier and, as anyone who has been to the O2 will tell you, the arena is huge… and the upper tier is very high indeed. In fact… let me dig out a picture…

I felt a lot higher up than that picture looks.

So we went out to get some drinks and whilst standing around we were approached by a couple who explained that they had a spare pair of tickets for the lower tier that they couldn’t sell. They had been out during every interval to find people to give them to but no one had taken their fancy… until they saw us! Strange, I know, but quite sweet. So we ended up in much nicer seats as illustrated in this next picture…

The Cure played for about 100 minutes which sounds like a lot but is actually a really short set for them. They played a lot of new stuff which was to be expected when the gig is put on by N.M.E. Robert then proclaimed that they would play a song from every album… a prospect that I was incredibly excited about as I thought it might mean finally seeing Bloodflowers live or possibly another one of their less played songs. I was a little disappointed with this as they ended up playing songs that they play quite often but missing out some really important ones such as Push and Play For Today. Jordan did spend the whole set shouting that she wanted Grinding Halt and finally got it in the encore and went a bit mental…

It was still very fun though as it always is seeing The Cure… I’m already looking forward to my sixth show. If you’re interested you can see the full set list here.

Getting home wasn’t fun and we arrived back at 1AM and had to be up at 7 the next day… fun.

Bits and bobs

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Jan 192009

I’ve just returned from the cinema. I don’t go nearly as much as I should but I’m hoping that will change at least over the next couple of weeks as there is a growing list of films I very much want to see. I went to see Che: Part One which was actually my third choice of film but I am forbidden to see The Wrestler or Slumdog Millionaire without Jordan (I may just go against that as there is a chance I’ll be having a day off this week and I’m really itching to see The Wrestler). The film was actually really good and I’m looking forward to the release of part two. I have to admit that my knowledge of Che Guevara was fairly limited before seeing the film. I love Benicio Del Toro and as always he’s really fun to watch – once he dons the iconic hat you can really believe that he really is the famous revolutionary. I feel like I learnt a lot from seeing the film and it definitely didn’t feel two and half hours long.

At some point this week before I see The Wrestler I’m planning on re-watching Darren Aronofsky’s previous three films – Pi, Requiem For a Dream and The Fountain. Anyone familiar with the former two will know that that will be a pretty heavy day if viewed together. I know it’s not a popular viewpoint but I’m really looking forward to watching The Fountain again. As Darren Aronofsky himself describes it ‘it’s a 40 million dollar art film.’ It’s not supposed to be mainstream. It’s not supposed to have a nice, clean happy, ending. It’s meant to be ambiguous and personally I think it’s one of the most beautifully shot films of this decade.

/rant

In other news I’ve had my first ‘celebrity’ acknowledgement on Twitter. If you’ve not heard of Twitter it’s basically a mini blogging site. You are limited to 160 characters in each ‘tweet’. It’s much the same as Facebook’s status updates – in fact, you can install an app in Facebook that updates your status every time your post to Twitter. At the moment I don’t have many people following me so it sometimes feels like a relatively pointless exercise although I’m hoping that people will catch on in time.

The great thing about it is being able to follow famous people that interest you. Steven Fry is a very popular tweeter. He’s fun to keep up to date with as he’s always jetting off all over the place and often has many witty comments to make. Another person I am following is Jhonen Vasquez – an alternative comic book writer responsible for Johnny The Homicidal Maniac, I Feel Sick and the cartoon Invader ZIM. He’s especially fun to follow as his tweets are more on the surreal side of things. This is how things went…

JhonenV Other game systems need miscreant mascots like the 360′s ‘Xbox Taco Assailant’. Put on your Helm of Brainstorming and get this shit done.

JhonenV PS3 Burrito Murderer? The Nintendo DS Sausage Ronin? The PSP McMuffin Rapist? I’m seeing a fighting game in this.

Louisblack @JhonenV Atari Jaguar Chrizo Child Molester

JhonenV So far Atari’s gotten the worst of it from you lot. The Atari Chorizo Child Molester? Atari Hamburger Fucker? Good god, guys. Well done!

Very fun indeed.

I was going to write about Jordan’s growing obsession with Viva Pinata as well but I think I’ll save that for another day.

Facial deformities on the tube

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Dec 292008

Right… I apologise sincerely in advance for any offence this may cause but I need to get it off my chest.

I was back at work today after a very enjoyable five days off from work and as if getting up in the freezing cold and having to leave the house to sit on the tube for an hour isn’t bad enough I was greeted by a new poster at Marylebone station. Now this wasn’t one of those nice adverts for holidays in the Ukraine or even some of that pretentious poetry on the underground that’s been popping up recently. It was a five foot tall picture of a Joseph Merrick lookalike. Now I’m really sorry but facial deformities scare me. I mean really scare me. I didn’t feel right all morning. It’s a feeling not unlike the one you got as a child when you watched the climax of The Fly when Jeff Goldblum’s head splits open to reveal the monster underneath or one of the Robocop goons meets his end by getting covered in toxic waste and partially melting.

I’m a bit scared now that I might run into this poster at other stations when I’m similarly unprepared… or even worse having it in front of me in a carriage when I have to travel from Balham to Edgeware… or opposite the platform blown up to about 20 feet high.

Everyone needs a phobia but I wish mine wasn’t so horrible to people that already must have a really shit time.

Top Games List – Burnout Legends

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Dec 052008

I thought I better get going on the first game nn my list before I completely forgot about it and wrote about something else.

I was a bit of a late comer to the whole Burnout party. I never played the first three games on PS2 which is strange because Ridge Racer 4 is one of my favourite racing games and I’m a huge fan of the arcade style. I picked up Burnout Legends on the PSP fairly early after it came out as during that time there was a distinct lack of great games on the PSP. I played it to death and I truly believe that it’s one of the contributing factors in me only getting a 2:2 at university. This was also during the period where I was travelling to Brighton, London or Milton Keynes to see Jordan every week so it helped me through a lot of long train and coach journeys.

My only gripe with the game was the rather horrendous load times. When you were playing crash mode and had to restart the level every 30 seconds or so the 15 second load times really got in the way.

Once Christmas is over and I have some free cash I’ll definitely be picking up Burnout Paradise on the 360.

Favourite games

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Dec 042008

Today at work I was listening to the Final Fantasy VII Advent Children soundtrack. Advent Children is a CGI movie sequel to Final Fantasy VII – one of the most loved video games ever made. This got me thinking about FFVII and then about all of the other games that I have loved over the years which gave me the idea of doing a top 10. After thinking about what would make my top 10 I ended up with a mental list of about 15 or 20 and could not for the life of me decide what would make the list and what wouldn’t.

So I decided it would be more fun to write a series of posts over the next few weeks in which I would name one game on the list and describe why it’s there. The list will be in alphabetical order (or in no order at all) so as not to show any favouritism.

I must stress that this is just my own oppinion and I will inevitably leave off many amazing games due to me not playing them or just thinking they aren’t very good. Over the years I have owned a fair few consoles and a pretty decent gaming PC so the list will cover most formats. For your information, this is what I’ve owned…

ZX Spectrum, NES, Master System, Mega Drive, MegaCD, 32X, SNES, Sega Saturn, N64, Playstation, Playstation 2, Game Boy, DS, PSP, Pocketstation (ahem) and XBox 360.

I have only recently acquired the XBox 360 so don’t expect to see many new games on the list and I haven’t really played the N64 since Jordan told me she had one a couple of years ago.

I hope you all enjoy my trip down memory lane and please give your oppinions on my choices!

New albums!

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Nov 262008

Hurrah! There is nothing quite like listening to a new album by one of your favourite bands and it not being a huge disappointment. Having been fairly hard up for cash over the last few months I have held off from buying Sigur Ros’ new album Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust. I had watched the excellent video for Gobbledigook a few times and decided to at least download that one track. Upon searching iTunes I found that the album was going for £5.99 (iTunes Plus, hence no DRM), an offer I couldn’t pass up.

My tube journey to work takes around an hour so I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to give it a good listen from beginning to end. I cant be bothered to go into a track by track review or anything but I have to say that overall, the album is definitely a candidate for my favourite album… that’s right… even better than Takk… and ( ).

If you are one of those people that only download single songs (I couldn’t do it. I’m too anal about my iTunes library – single tracks piss me off) I would highly recommend Goggledigook – even if you had previously written off Sigur Ros as pretentious bollocks. There are several more ‘catchy’ songs, i.e. not 10 minutes long, throughout the album but they do not in any way sound dumbed down or unlike Sigur Ros. There are a couple of epics on there too so lets not get too scared that we’ll see Jonsi playing his guitar with a violin bow on T4 just yet… although they like to be all edgy and underground nowadays so we just might…

Now the reason for the plural in the title of this post is because I also wanted to quickly write about The Cure’s new album 4:13 Dream. I’ve deliberately waited a while to voice my opinions because they have a habit of changing over a short period of time as was the case with 2004′s The Cure. At the time I listened to it non stop but now I only ever really listen to Lost, Going Nowhere and, if we are talking about the vinyl, This Morning. A similar thing happened with 4:13 Dream. I listened to it once through and made up an opinion which after several more plays had completely reversed.

I hated it.

Well… maybe hate is too strong. I couldn’t really hate an album that included Underneath the Stars and The Perfect Boy but the rest seemed a bit of a disappointment. At least The Cure (the album) flipped between upbeat songs and more dreary ones. 4:13 Dream is practically musical Prozac in comparison. I know Robert has promised that we’ll see the darker songs on another album released next year but rarely can we trust our mate Bob. After listening through a good few times (as of this time, the play count is at around 20) I’ve realised that it doesn’t really matter that there are no Disintegrations, Bloodflowers or Colds. It is still a great collection of more energetic, punchier Cure songs that will be remembered alongside Just Like Heaven and Inbetween Days rather that the aforementioned epics.

You can decide for yourselves over at the album’s Last.fm page where every track is available in full. I’ll just sit and wait in hope that we do actually see this dark album next year and I finally get to hear a non live version of the almost legendary song ‘A Boy I Never Knew’ – a song recorded for the 2004 album but scraped because it was so sad the recording had Robert crying for the last minute. It was lost for about four years until they played it on this year’s 4Tour. Now that’s The Cure that everyone really wants. Not all this happy lark.

My early Christmas present

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Nov 162008

Yet again, I apologise for the complete radio silence on this blog over the last month. I’m not sure why I haven’t posted as there have been several important events that have occurred over the last month which I have been quite interested in such as the new Cure album, The Cure playing the O2, the U.S. presidential election and the wonderful Dead Set.

One other thing to happen to me this month is my (almost) free acquisition of an XBox 360. I have a friend who earns a fair amount of money. He is also quite impatient. His second XBox 360 started showing the infamous red ring of death and was therefore useless. I assured him that he could get it repaired and that I would even sort it all out for him and send it off myself. He didn’t want to wait that long and the next weekend he went out and bought himself a brand new premium model. He then donated the broken console to me to send off to be repaired.

I bought some packing paper and bubble wrap (this is the almost part of the previous paragraph – cost = £6.00) and sent it off to the Microsoft repair centre in Frankfurt. It has only been a week and I have already been told via Microsoft’s support site that they have sent out my new XBox. I should have it arrive some time next week.

Now the last time I wrote a post about video games was back in April. I was annoyed at not being able to play Grand Theft Auto IV and I mentioned I was very much a PlayStation fan. It’s not due to any mindless fanboyism, it’s just because I have had Playstations since 1998 and most of my favourite franchises are Sony exclusives (WipeOut, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid). I do not, however, have a spare £299 + games to spare on buying a PlayStation 3 so a free XBox will make a pretty good stand in since other than the franchises I have mentioned, most games are cross platform or indeed Microsoft exclusives.

I am still faced with the problem of disliking the controller and of course having to quickly translate A, B, X and Y into X, Triangle, Circle and Square. I’m sure after playing GTA for a few hours I will have worked it out but I still doubt I will ever love a controller more than the Dual Shock.

Another problem I am facing is the fact that I’m not a huge fan of first person shooters. OK, this may sound strange coming from someone that often cites Half Life 2 as one of his favourite games but that’s different… that’s Half Life 2. I am looking forward to Bioshock and maybe one of the new Call of Dutys but I couldn’t care less about Halo 3 or 90% of the other FPSs that clutter up the XBox game catalogue. I am also not fussed about XBox live. I don’t particularly want to pay £30 a year to be called a ‘gay’ or a ‘pussy’ by a fifteen year old American kid because I don’t play the game 19 hours a day. Online gaming is really something that has passed me by.

So there we are. I am a PlayStation fan forced to go over to the dark side. When I bought my iMac back in April 2007 I thought I was rid of Microsoft but they have a funny way of getting themselves back into your life. Lets just hope that they’ve sorted out their god awful quality control and my shiny new box won’t die a horrible death lit by three red lights in a few months time.

I shall report back once I’ve had a few days of play with it and I can say for sure whether I feel cheap and dirty from cheating on Lady Playstation with her most bitter of rivals or whether I will be starting divorce proceedings.

Sound

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Oct 182008

It’s been weeks since my last post and I’m afraid this one isn’t really going to make up for the lack of attention being paid to this blog at the moment.

Lying in bed this morning I was flicking through the channels and ended up settling on Sound which is a trendy music show presented by Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac and generic, indie funny-man Nick Grimshaw. This usually isn’t my thing but I do sometimes like to see what music is popular nowadays.

There was a band… no wait, that’s the wrong word… I’m not quite sure how to describe them. Think of Blazin Squad with only three members and one of those members being female… got it? They are called N Dubs if you want to look them up or maybe listen to a 30 second preview on iTunes. You know, just for fun.

Well, (the?) N Dubs were being interviewed by the aforementioned Annie and Nick and were discussing how they feel that they have worked really hard to get where they are and, even though they respect other artists who don’t write their own songs, they see themselves as more credible because they do everything.

It then cut to their performance of a song called Ouch. Now bear in mind that they have just ‘bigged up’ their song writing skills in the interview section. The chorus consists of the line ‘I loved you so much but you cheated on me’ and ‘You need to recognise that she was just a whore.’

Top notch lyrics if you ask me.

Hypnagogic States

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Sep 302008

Every month from May to August The Cure released a new single on the 13th. The Singles were The Only One, Freak Show, Sleep When I’m Dead and The Perfect Boy. Now I wrote my thoughts on The Only One back in May when it was released but I didn’t get round to writing anything about the other songs. All were a good listen but it was The Perfect Boy that made me wish it was the 29th of October so I could hear the new album (Dream 4:13).

In September they released an E.P., Hypnagogic States which includes remixes of all four singles and one mash up, as it were, by 65DaysofStatic – a band who have already reserved £8 of my first pay packet to buy an album.

I’m not usually a big fan of remix albums as remixes seldom live up to the original. Hynagogic States is like that in a way. A little of their Cure-ness is lost in the translation but overall they are all still great songs. The Perfect Boy would still be amazing if Robert Smith sang it over the sound of tortured kittens.

The final mash up track, Exploding Head Syndrome, is slightly different. At 21 minutes long it almost feels like Godspeed You Black Emperor if they went a bit disco. As it bears so little resemblance to the original material, Exploding Head Syndrome holds up as its own piece. I would expect little else from one of my future favourite bands.

Not bad for £3.99.

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