pez' rambling grounds

Lager Lager Lager

2005-12-31T20:25:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to two thousand and six anno domini.

I'm having difficulty typing around the piles of cans and bottles on my desk. Not only was it a good mate's birthday, but also the first New Year's I was over 18, so I've spent two days drinking. This blog will be ridiculously inarticulate and rather boring I predict, because of the alcohol. Look, it's making less sense every sentence. Anyway, the state of my life is as follows: uni is funky fresh and generally good, I have a new computering device, and I have a lot of games consoles. Christmas simply paid for them all a bit. I'm endeavouring to be a trendy fellow laden with technology to wow and amaze random passers-by, and so far it's going as planned. I own my first pair of jeans, and have a total of seven handheld games consoles, plus an MP3 player and PDA. Hang on, it might be eight consoles. Does the Pocketstation count? I don't know. Anyway, yes, consoles galore, I can even play Xbox system link games against myself, that's how much crap I now own.

Running out of things to say already. I need some good inspiration for a blog entry that will return to the glory of the olden days. Oh well. There's talk yet again of another Ninjaz reunion, but how much content will be produced remains to be seen. We now have at least two guitarists, two or three vocalists, no drummer and no bassist. Just like every other band of adolescents eh?

Okay, I'm tired and full of a curdling mix of Red Square and Carling, so I'll try and reach the post button before I pass out on my keyboa

edit.

2005-10-31T18:26:00.000-08:00

Cripes, just noticed, this thing is well over a year old now with virtually no content, and the last Ninjaz release was half a year ago! We'll have to sort that out.

ps. that naff game Juiced I mentioned in an early article? The full version came out recently, I 'acquired' it to test, and it's the same. The only difference is that it's stuffed with bloated menu videos, stripped of them it can fit on a CD. Worthless game.

Oh damn, suddenly inspired for tons of new blog entries. Meh, postponing them, I've spent enough hours trapped by the riddle of the Mazda Capella for tonight.

Schizophrenia in relation to the automobile.

2005-10-31T17:14:00.000-08:00

Sorry, this one won't be very interesting for those of you out for a laugh.

Recently, a lot of Japanese car manufacturers have launched alternate names for themselves in foreign markets (I say recently, in the last 15 years). For example, Toyota have Lexus (big Toyotas sold to posh people) and Scion (little Toyotas sold to posers). None of these are innovative however. In the 80s and 90s, Mazda pulled such a stunt, except they didn't keep themselves to three names, oh no. They came up with all manner of insane rebrandings, including the hilariously confusing idea of selling the same car under three or four badges in the same market. Not only that, but a large number of these cars had rebodied siblings, often in the same brand, and most had totally different names overseas.

This brings us to the example of the Mazda Capella. Wikipedia revealed these inane links:

The Mazda Capella (aka Mazda 626 and Mazda Montrose) was upsized onto the same platform as the Xedos 6 (aka Eunos 500, Mazda Lantis and nearly the Amati 300). The Mazda Cronos (aka Mazda 626) took its place. There was also a rebodied Cronos named the Efini MS-6 (aka Autozam Clef). The Capella's new platform was also used for the new Mazda Lantis (aka Mazda 323F, plus sold in Eunos and Efini dealers, but now a totally different size to the Xedos 6 aka Mazda Lantis). Also, the Capella had a sister car named the Mazda Persona (aka Eunos 300) which was replaced by the Efini MS-8. Now just to be confusing, the Cronos was replaced by the Capella (aka 626). While the Cronos was originally a Capella (and the Capella evolved into a new model), the Capella became a rebodied Cronos, and this is before the 626 name is considered! Anyway, the whole lot were replaced by the Mazda Atenza (aka Mazda6) (which is mechanically very similar to the Ford Mondeo...). This is before we get into the Mazda Luce (whose coupe was the Mazda Cosmo aka Eunos Cosmo), sold with piston engines as the 929, which was replaced by the Mazda Sentia, aka Efini MS-9. This fit above the Capella and the larger Mazda Millenia (aka Xedos 9 or Eunos 800 or nearly an Amati too).

I'm not done yet. The smaller model to the Capella was the Mazda Familia (aka 323, except when the Lantis was, and once Mazda GLC), which had a coupe derivative titled the Mazda MX3 (aka Mazda Precidia, Eunos Presso, Autozam AZ-3, Eunos 30X or even Mazda AZ-3) and over the years became aka Mazda Astina (also a name for the 323F aka Lantis), Mazda Etude, Eunos 100, or Mazda Protege, and now replaced by the Mazda Axela (aka Mazda3).

This is just Mazda. There's only about 4 distinct models in there, but god knows how many actual rebrandings there were. If you want to get more confusing, often totally different marques 'borrow' a car to fill a gap in their range. Mazda also did this, one example is the Autozam AZ-Offroad (aka Suzuki Jimny). Australia's market (the bastard offspring of America's muscle saloons and Japan's economy cars with a good pinch of Supras and Corsas muddying the water) is notorious for it too. The previously mentioned Mazda Familia had some nasty ones, through its life it was also the Ford Laser, Ford Meteor, Mercury Tracer, Ford Topic, Sao Penzo, Ford Activa and Ford Lynx, as well as sharing mechanicals withe Ford Escort, which was a totally different car to the European car named the Ford Escort. The Australian versions of world marques also didn't always stick to one other marque to borrow from, leading to such convoluted nonsense as this:

So, the Ford Corsair was a rebadged Nissan Pintara which was a renamed Nissan Bluebird which was the European version of the Nissan Stanza, which used to be a Datsun, but the Pintara was formerly a Nissan Skyline which shared mechanicals with the Holden Commodore, a big rival of the Ford Falcon, which was the larger brother of the Corsair, which replaced the Ford Telstar, which was a reshaped Mazda Capella (not that bugger again), also known as the 626, which later shared its platform with the Mazda MX6, which was rebodied as the Ford Probe, but the Probe wasn't related to the Telstar or Corsair at all.

Nowadays it's a bit nicer. Marques share platforms more and more, but have the common courtesy to totally rebody their cars. Nobody would suspect that the Mazda2 was a Ford Fiesta, the 3 was a Focus which in turn was a Volvo S40, and the 6 was a Mondeo, now in turn being spun off to Mercurys and even other Fords. VW-Audi Group is a champion at this, it has approximately five platforms, from which the entire ranges of VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT and Bentley are constructed. In fact, one of those platforms is shared with Porsche too, and not yet used outside of VW, making it even more impressive.

So the moral of the story: if you're going to sell the same car under different names, at least be nice enough to give it a different look (the VW Golf / Audi TT / Skoda Octavia / SEAT Leon is an excellent example), and for god's sake don't make up names simply to flog more rebadged hatchbacks. It's a good job Mazda lost a lot of money on their hugely complex multi-brand strategy, else you'd be sitting at home right now trying to decide between a Capella, Cronos, 300, 626, MS-6, Clef, 500, 300 (not the same 300 as the other 300) or god knows how many more, and pondering if there was any larger difference than the brochures.

A mildy humourous anecdotal rant update will probably follow soonish, as usual.

Accidents & Compliments

2005-09-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

Today was Friday.

Technically it's now very early on Saturday, but shut up, that doesn't fit in a nice flow of prose.

I woke up at... no. The start was going to bed at some time around 2am due to a lack of tiredness. Awoken at some time near four with hunger, a small snack satisfied my primal need, and I was asleep by five.

I woke up at eight, battering my infernal alarm clock into a deathly silence. I knew the bell would toll another morn, but for now it was dormant (okay, it beeps, but a beeper doesn't fucking toll does it? Come on, I try to make this rubbish interesting, and it's just pick, pick pick. Go get some poeticness. Not a word? Get fu... anyway, tale). I did the normal morning ablutions, and prepared to catch the bus. Yes, the bus. I am reduced to such primitive transport as the uni, unlike the college and schools, is not within walking distance, rather it languishes or even skulks in the city several miles asunder of my home. Just as I was about to leave, my watch died. Hurriedly I grabbed the closest pocket-sized timepiece I could find. The one advantage of the Sega Dreamcast is the gimmicky-at-first-glance memory cards, featuring a small LCD screen. When not used for Soul Calibur savegames (although it still stores them), it has a handy little clock, with two-frame bounding puppies. This got stuffed in my already crowded pocket, and I caught the bus.

I mentioned before my height. This again becomes a factor on this area's positively Lilliputian public transport. The buses are worst. It is physically impossible from me to sit facing foward in a seat without the removal of the anterior row or seriously fractured femurs. Thus, I adopted a curious sideways position, with my knees pointing diagonally left over the adjacent seat, and my body twisted forward so I can look out of the windows and actually use some of the seat back. Today however, the patron saint of public transport (Shittius Plebbius is probably his name) decided that this heaten crime would not be allowed to pass unpunished. Halfway through the ludicrously long 45-minute journey (car takes roughly 15 including parking, but would cost way way more), some old dear on the way up to town to get her state pension and her humble shopping decided to ignore the hugely vacant seat across the aisle and try to cram into the seat my lower body was occupying. Now, I doubt anybody other than male OAPs really wish to have their legs rubbing against an old lady's for a full twenty minutes, so I was forced to attempt to jam my legs into the space that wasn't there between the rows. Over the rest of the journey as my tendons twanged and my patellas gained a permanent imprint of an angled Arriva-logoed seat back, this dear old pet transformed in my mind into a stupid old bag who was taking up any vestige of luxury the big tractor-powered metal box offered. When I could finally leave my seat at the bus stop, I felt as free as Willy the killer whale as he leapt the pier and unfortunately failed to crush that stupid little kid going 'lol free willy lol yay'. Anyway, I walked with a slight limp for the next half an hour.

I'd gotten to uni early, to register with the Student Union, for discounts and what have you. After a brief mildly embarrassing episode in which I totally walked the wrong way for a while, I arrived at the building housing the Union. Registration was overly complicated and utterly daft, involving online registration which played no part in any other steps yet was compulsory, then you were instructed to hand-write you details onto a card template and provide a passport photo. I assumed that these details and photo would be fed into a computer, and some peripheral would form and eject a lovely identity card. No. Some lackey simply taped the lot to a rectangle of card and handed it back, after charging a whole British pound for the service. She wasn't a bad looking lackey however, or unfriendly, and unlike Bob I actually pay attention to girls a year or so older than myself, and... whatever, back to story, I'm going slower than I hoped, no time to be bogged down. So, this high-tech and laser-fast process took a whole 20 minutes or so, and I was needing to hurry to get to the first induction session. To cut a long story short, I got slightly lost again, and ended up going the wrong way around the largish building I had to be in, and coming to the correct corridor last, even though it's right next to the entrance. Arriving slightly late to the room, I joined a simple session of the tutors explaining stuff about the course, discussion of a few games, and a bit of chatter, spawning the phrase 'seduce my bot'. The other students and tutors seem a decent lot, probably will be a good laugh. I might as well pause to mention my course, it's a BSc Honours in Computer Games Software Engineering. Basically, I get to play games, talk about them then make them. Oh yeah. The strange thing about the course is that out of the huge crowd of Computing-related students, there was actually a couple of, *gasp*, girls. Even more shockingly, there's one on my course. It's like 'zomg gurl on teh intarweb', but like, more zomg. The jury's still out, though there's favourable noises. D;

Anyway, this only took 40 minutes of the scheduled hour, so I wandered around town for a while. I returned for the computer introduction, which covered the very basics, which everyone knew, so after 35 minutes the class disbanded. It was barely 11:40, and the next activity, an optional game of Wolfenstein against some of the 2nd-years, wasn't until 1pm. I headed off into the main street for a while, and had a good long walk, eventually getting a sandwich. May I note that through the earlier wanderings and part of this, it was raining. Anyway, I found somewhere mildly dry to eat (a foot-long meatball sub is difficult to eat on the go) and, well, ate. By then it was still only 12, so I set off back to uni to register at the library. It was nice and simple, I just walked in, gave my details and they made a card (a proper one, not like the Union's budget shite). Ah, but wait. This is an educational establishment. Thus, it took a hundred and four minutes of sitting in a chair waiting, then a minute of sitting in another chair waiting for the card to be made. Long queue isn't the word for it. Well, it is. Although it's two words. By the time I escaped that boredom pit of hell, it seems the Wolfenstein game had finished, or I couldn't find the bloody thing, so I fucked off down the pub.

Homeslice and Laddo were already there for the normal Friday stuff, and there were games of pool and drinks and pool and drinks and jukebox playing and drinks. The Gurl wasn't coming because she was ill. Eventually, she turned up. Me and the Laddo rocked out to the Beasties' classic Fight For Your Right (it was now getting on towards 10pm and I was full of beer and vodka and two shots at a time), then it all fell into the shitter and got shitted, or maybe shitty, or generally not good. The Gurl and the Laddo had themselves a nice tiff despite not being married or even in any sort of relationship. Homeslice, the champion that he is, tried to moderate. He ended up frustrated by their continual bickering, and eventually popped off to get a burger. Now that I've typed all the uni stuff, which was going to be short, I can't be bothered elaborating on the argument, so I won't. Eventually it seemed just arguing for the sake of it, and I was also getting sick. After they separated for a while, they both individually calmed down a bit, and they headed to a club with Homeslice. By now it was about 11pm, and I was fucking knackered. I came home, slumped into this chair with a cold quiche and started typing. It's now just on the tip of 2am, so it's taken me a fair while to write all of this lark, all three parts.

For now, I shall sleep soon. I ache, from the bus and the walking and the drinking and all that. My throat is sore from the rapping and the loud singing and laughing and all that. I think 8am until 2am on three hours of sleep is a pretty nicely long day, especially with all the crap I've been doing. For now, it's time to settle into a uni life, luckily my days start at 10am and I don't have many lectures this term. Time to relax, probably build a new PC as this one is being a bellend, then whatever. Pondering the future is for suckaz.

Moments Pass By, Oh So Slowly

2005-09-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

(Part 2 of 3)

So. That mini adventure was a good fortnight or so ago. The weeks slid by one by one before and after it, with the only real discernable events being the revelation of my A-level results. They weren't quite what I hoped for, and the university I had applied to told me there was 'no way' I was getting on the course. Shit. I decided, after a week of deliberation, that my only real option was to return to college for another whole year and see if I could improve and move up to a degree the next year instead.

Applications were sent, meetings were had, and eventually I was getting ready to start. Suddenly a letter landed on the doormat (well, as sudden as letters do, it probably came at about half seven, but it was only noticed at nine or so, and it had taken about 48 hours to get here, but that's not the point, okay). Upon opening it, I discovered inside a selection of leaflets and letters explaining when and where the uni year started. Fearing some kind of sick joke by a demented secretary whose only secret pleasure was the taunting of rejected and dejected students with teaser letters to rub in their visage the prospect of what they could have become, only to snatch it away and leave them to another year of college drudgery, or in fact make the student themselves crush their own dreams with the knowledge they were a failure, which is probably worse, I sent an enquiry to the uni itself. It seems the secretary must have been locked in the stationary cupboard that day, it seems that the fickle admissions board had changed its collective mind, and I was actually going to uni after all. The college got told to fuck off, and I prepared for a proper year.

Enrolment came and went, just this last Monday. Almost the first person I bumped into was someone I knew previously who I hoped would be there, which was nice, and it seems a fair few acquaintances were doing courses there. The enrolment itself was just an enrolment, nothing special or interesting. I prepared to return on Friday for a brief introduction before acquiring the required cards and returning home. But wait, I hear you gasp! Surely Fridays are for drunken larks with your cohorts! Yes, they are. Hey, I was only going to be sitting in a classroom for a couple of hours in the morning, right?

Stranger In A Foreign Land

2005-09-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

(Part 1 of 3, I decided I want three seperate titles for three roughly linked events. Sue me (not really, I'm just a poor student)).

I wandered through the unknown terrain, staring at the alien constructions. Strangely-dressed creatures flowed around me, ignorant of what I was or what I was doing. Maybe they didn't care, maybe they were too wrapped up in the private business of their own existence to care, but as I roamed they let me intermingle with them despite my outsider status. I was not one of them, they were not like me, but neither party cared. I knew that once I was almost one of them, so recent yet so distant in the murks of the past, and I knew that I would eventually return to them, but right then and right there, I wasn't one of them, and I only had one aim in mind.

Well, this reads like so much bollocks unless I actually give the story from the start, so it goes a little something like this.

Fridays. My sabbath. No work, just a day sitting in the pub with mates. However, this Friday was planned to be a little different. Instead of a leisurely drinking session in a licensed public house, we were to trek to the wilderness that is the towns south of the river, and spend the evening at the house of a friend consuming cheap cans of beer. The usual drinking crew (me best mate, who I'll refer to as Homeslice for no reason other than we were talking about the word, and canny lad and lassie, who I can't be arsed to think up silly nicknames for). We all took the local Metro train service to Gurl's house (okay, there's a decent nickname), got some drink from the off-license, et cetera. We walked all the way to her place, got drunk, had a fair laugh with her family, then eventually were left at two AM to sleep on the floor/sofas. Of course, we first watched the most intellectually stimulating DVD movie ever, a feature-length episode of My Little Pony. Eventually, just as the story became interesting and the drama was building to a peak, the DVD crapped out so we decided to sleep.

Now, I'm around six feet and six inches tall. These sofas were two-seaters. I was not comfortable. I could settle down, but not quite sleep. Thus, I lay about until seven of the morning, at which point Homeslice stirred, I had a brief conversation and decided to make an attempt at getting to sleep... in my own bed. I left. Now, I'd never been in this area in my life, and the journey here was an whole sleepless night and too many pints ago. I struck out in what I hoped was the right direction. As I wandered, I met this strange breed: businessmen and other people who... get up early. Dressed in smart suits or uniforms, they colonised the streets like some form of absurd ant. Through them I travelled, dressed like a student the previous day, now ruffled after a night on cushions and an evening of alcoholic malarkey, with old-school acid basslines pulsing through my headphones to keep me awake and aware. They had slept a normal night, sober and clean, woken up and dressed tidily, and were now on their way to a nice averagely normal day at work. I was experiencing the worst of both drunkenness, sobriety and hangovers, and my sole aim was to get back across the world to my soft warm bed and sleep the mid-morning away in blissful idleness.

I got home in the end, and had a good kip. I was ill for about a week, but wshether it was related I'm sceptical. It obviously didn't help my mood trudging to and from the Metro at these strange hours, but the contrast between the lifestyles was almost comic, and I realised that one day I will have settled down to a sensible lifestyle with a general hum of base contentedness, which makes all these stupid events and odd stories so much more worthwhile.

Three months? Okay.

2005-08-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

Trends.

It seems the world revolves around them nowadays. If you don't conform to the latest fashion style, acting style or even lifestyle, you're not 'cool', although that word probably isn't 'cool' any more by some trend or other's standards. It seems all of popular society must assign themselves to some trend or other like magnetised sheep around an iron shepherd. Although, even though religions are almost trends, I won't link the shepherd to Jesus' birth, because that sort of intellectual social commentary is not something I can be bothered with after so many drinks. And no, I'm not trying to be 'cool' by composing drunken blog entries, I'm just bored enough to be drunk, and bored enough to type randomly.

Anyway. Trends seem to link in with another element of modern common culture, commercialism. Obviously, companies cash in on trends any way they can, even spawning them themselves. Thus, the vast webs of products you must own to fit in intermingles with the slang, the actions and the clothing you must wear, itself another commercial product. The advent of television and now the internet means that the average person is absolutely drenched in the douche of trendy advertising ejaculated daily by these media. Trends now creep subconsciously into the minds of even the most 'uncool' people, it's like dumping a collection of boxes underwater, even the sealed Tupperware will leak under the pressure eventually. Shit that was a bad analogy. Whatever, as I was rambling, trends permeate every part of popular culture, you must conform to one or another. You also must fight against other cultures that may be more profitable that yours, it's like the fucking Crusades all over again. If you're a chav (definition: suicide blonde tracksuit-wearing label-flashing bling-exposing estate-living crap-listening slut) you must attack and destroy anybody who has allied themselves with the goth trend (definition: deathly white black-dyed trenchcoat-wearing scar-flashing crap-listening slut), or at least shout 'gay hippy' at them as they pass listening to Papa Roach at a thousand decibels. Even if you're not going as far as being one of these highly stereotyped thugs, there's plenty for you. You can buy one of those iPod thingies and an iMac whatsit, so that you can boast to your Audi-driving acquaintances at the local wine bar that you have all the latest high-tech gadgetry even though you secretly don't know what the Gerry Adams an iMac actually does or why you own one other than as a trendy paperweight for your living room because your designer coffee table is just so July love. You can splash Holley NOS stickers down the side of your one-litre Punto and buy an exhaust tip larger than the boosters on the Space Shuttle Discovery, or even better four, to pimp your ride with all the other wankers in shitboxes with gay 'performance' addons. Volume does not equal power shithead.

This rant was originally going to have more of a specific point about trends, but I've forgotten it and I frankly can't be arsed to care what it was. Maybe I'm getting dangerously close to the angsty-teen-posting-their-woes-with-the-world-on-the-internet trend, but I try not to. Basically, don't be a magnetised sheep, make up your own mind on what you want to do. If what you want to do is blindly follow a trend, well why are you even reading this? Go download DJ Crazy Frog from those multi-millionaire bastards who spam the world with their badly-made adverts for badly-made stolen ringtones and join that trend, then I can feel no remorse if you die falling off the back of a train while stupidly trying to fare-dodge by clinging on and also attract the chav bints sitting nursing a Benson in the back carriage.

I personally avoid trends, I deliberately wear awfully unfashionable clothing, listen to no mainstream music (and actively scorn it and any who profess to like it, even though it's pap equivalent to that tasteless formless goop you feed a weaning baby with, just like the tasteless masses are force-fed with this mush on the radio and television), and I try not to be a poser or in any way 'cool'. Hell, I refuse to take any of these morons seriously, I laugh at chavs and their inbred insensible innuendos, goths and they're 'omg im so harcoare' approach to absolutely everything and insistence that they're depressed while living in a posh uptown house with a BMW, ricers with their crappy hatchback rollin' on seventeens (I shall be making a hall of shame specially for them and their aluminium-winged Del Sols soon) and even the completely vapid 'popular' 'personalities' who are 'cool' for owning this, that or the even more ludicrous other. I buy things that I think are good, I don't give a stuff if some fashion guru in 'gay Paris' thinks I look like I've just stumbled out of an 80s timewarp into a third-world nylon sweatshop, at least I don't look like that guru. I'm spending my time being conspicuously single, but the only person who seems to have cared was a ratty little lass who I wouldn't touch with a bargepole. And no, I'm not going to 'do a Morton', I actually have standards.

More entries later covering the long non-posting spree, but for now I need to sober up. I bet I'll look at this later and think 'shit, what the hell was I going on about, and look at that awful grammar'. Oh well, what the hell.

I can't end on a bad rhyme, so, yeah.

2005-05-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

Always too fucking slow.

Normal service will resume shortly.

General Update Of Newslessness #279

2005-03-29T19:19:00.000-08:00

As a brief antidote to the previous article, I may as well mention I've registered http://www.pez2k.net for myself, which will probably end up containing at least a redirect to this blog or some other miscellaneous rubbish. My current activities include completing MGS3 again and again, and getting bored of GT4. I have two weeks off college, so many deliberately sleepless nights are ensuing. I float in an empty world of half-awakeness, blurring between sleep and life, with minor stimuli such as the odd day out or game storylines, but just a general slush of ineventfulness devoid of responsibility or cares. It's bliss in a way.

Although not as good a way as I can think of.

The Internet Is Dead, And So Are You.

2005-03-29T18:55:00.000-08:00

Ever trawled through your old 'net favourites list? One theme always prevails, that of decay, death and deprival. Websites that no longer update, that just were left indefinitely by their owners, forums with the last post dated nearly a year ago, where you refrain from logging in to avoid disturbing the dust, and so on and so forth. A huge portion of the internet is essentially dead. Life and activity flourish for short periods of time when a site has interest and can attract visitors, but as its purpose expires or other new interests drain the attention it was once given, it slows, stalls, and thoughts of it gradually cease to exist. However, due to the ever-living immortality of computers, the site itself cannot die and be truly forgotten, it is condemned to an eternal life of inactivity and staleness. Coming upon such a site brings such an odd feeling, a place once thriving now lays empty and unloved, but unlike traditional reality would have us believe, there is no collapse and ruin, rather an eerie moment frozen in time, as perfectly preserved as the day it was abandoned. Of course, everything dies eventually, even in the digital dreamworld, as old and obsolete machinery is unceremoniously severed from the community and replaced by superior new equipment, but equipment that lacks the forgotten heritage of the pages on the elder server. Maybe this is a fitting release for these stores of thoughts left behind in the flow of time, not even deleted but just cut off from all access to the outside world. Thoughts is what they are, do not forget that this whole universe online is created entirely by individual minds expressing themselves, whether it be in art, text or other. Thoughts are forgotten, but these live on in eternal solitude. Dead forums, blogs or even plain old pages contain casual expressions of opinion, many of them yours or mine, beliefs that may no longer be held or thoughts you wish weren't shared, but it cannot be altered, it remains a solid untouchable history of what you were, an archive of some part, some form, some character of yourself expressed briefly on that screen, or another's emotion borne out in bits and bytes. Some past part of yourself is there, not you any more, but lost and drowning in the river of the past, to be fossilized in the mud and remain everpresent and unknown, for ever and ever and ever and ever and...

Eternally.

Lord Sainsbury & Biggles Visit The Mausoleum

2005-02-26T17:20:00.000-08:00

Well hi, I'm bored. Been up to nothing recently. Anyone thought of a rant subject for me yet? Oh, one thing, we managed to super ninja stealth our way back into the studio and get the 2nd version of Trogdor, which is currently being mixed, plus a namechange to 'Clockwork Ninjaz'. I also recorded my own special take on the Trogdor vocals, to be used on a remix version.

I started playing Counter-Strike: Source, which is basically CS but pretty, with the addition of physics to play with and super-easy headshots. It's not particularly great, but something to do. I've also taken a look at some cheapish cars I could possibly buy whenever I get round to learning to drive, but the insurance is killer. For a 1988 Toyota Carina with cloth seats, carbs and a market value of three hundred pounds sterling (but also a nice base for a 400bhp twincharged 4A monster), the insurance is... £2300. Total bullshit. I'd hate to think what it is for the butterfly-doored Toyota Sera, mainly because although not much quicker than the Carina, it's an import so the insurance is astronomical. Shame, a good one is about 2 grand, and swapping out the anaemic 1.5 for a boosted 4E and all the gear for 200bhp (double stock) costs about that again, or less, and can be fitted in a day.

Sitting around waiting to turn 18 so I can spend money on drink. Also waiting for Gran Turismo 4 to play, seeing as that's the least delayed of all the games that America's had for months. I'm so incredibly bored. This update is devoid of humour as I am nearing the point of brain death from boredom. I'm only typing this cos it's half 1 in the morning and there's nowt on the telly, I'm too awake to go to bed, and everyone else is asleep so I can't play any games. Plus I'm sick to death of the games I have anyway. Still can't rip any of me vinyl, I realised I need a new sound card too, so I'm preparing to fork out for that. These sentences are about a minute or two apart as I struggle to come up with anything worth typing. The last update was a Tiga music video by the way.

Meh.

The Streets Run Red On Ocean Drive...

2005-02-16T17:28:00.000-08:00

ps. proper update soonish.

Meatloaf And The Armies of the Living Dead vs The Evil Empire Of Dracula And His Briny Horde: The Musical

2005-01-19T13:35:00.000-08:00

Evening chaps.

So, got the Trogdor tune mastered and stuff. Then we created an amazing symphony of feedback and scratching, as well as a few messes. A second version of Trogdor was recorded, including a mindblowing 6 minute and 33 seconds scream acapella consisting mostly of idle chatter and prototypes of an upcoming track entitled 'Masturbation'. Then today, after a horrificalamatasticamagorically bad maths exam, I strolled down the studio to discover... ! Some dickbum assface shitpuppet monkeyturd had nicked the cart from one of the turntables, and the studio was now Off Limits. It was the one on the deck we never ever touched, so we're in the clear, although the people we suspect did the thieving nicely dropped us in it so we look guilty. Faggots. Plus we got two complaints about the screaming n shit so we're not in the world's good books. Oh well.

The rest of the day was the normal hypermediocrity, me and mates decided to linger around the exam hall for a couple of hours after maths so we could turn up to Physics seventy-five minutes late, y'know, just to be cool. I yet again forgot to go out and buy a good cable for me turntable -> PC link, and now it's all dark and cold and dark and shops are shut and that. Me teeny digicam finally went flat after 8 days. Another Computing mock exam, the only one I'm confident at. Finally got a Physics revision book like everyone else after pestering the teacher for ages and ages. I say a book, I mean 90 sheets of photocopied book. Lamer. This blog entry is crap, I really need a good subject to eloquently rant about and be funny. Mail me heare, but don't spam me or you'll die. Not right away, maybe not even in this decade, but eventually, one day, you'll die, lying in a nursing home at the incontinent old age of 128 when your ole ticker gives out, or when you're hit by a bus playing American 'Football' on the M25 next week, or when your plane goes down after being hit by a neurotic turkey on LSD when you're on your weekly commute to Surrey selling nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners to elderly women in 2023, or even when an industrial accident in the sweatshop into which you were born into bondage severs your limbs so you can no longer shovel cheap American greaseburgers into your face any more so you die of hunger on the hot Martian desert as vultures with those awesome astronaut helmets with gold visors that are like totally bling circle you waiting to feast on your bloated corpse except when they take off their helmets to eat their heads explode like lightbulbs in a microwave except with more gore and meaty chunks and shit, well then you'll think bugger, I shouldn't have spammed him. Now I've given you the chance to make that decision again, this timke don't spam and you wont die. Well, you will, but you won't feel so bad about it now. Well, you will feel bad about it cos you'll be dead, but y'know. Whatever.

PS: TROGDOOOOOOOOOOOOORRR.

Y HALO THEIR

2005-01-16T10:52:00.000-08:00

Ok so hello. I have decided to post here again for the normal reason, the one that begins with B and rhymes with 'whoredom'.

This time, I have been mainly doing not much. My lifestyle consists of:
getup.
go back to bed.
get up late.
rush to college listening to Pounding_Techno_Music.
sit in boredom.
amble home for luncheon listening to beats that are broken.
eat.
rush to college listening to emotive synthesizer tunes.
sit in boredom.
stroll home listening to harcoare gothik muzsik.
sit in boredom.
sleep.
repeat ad infinitum.

Fun eh?

My current boredom activity is posting on lamer forums, making fun of lamers in a discreet and subtle way that is appreciable by non-lamers. I also read a forum that I'm too cheap to pay to register on. Then I play some gamez. NFS: Underground 2 took up a nice chunk of time with its repetitiveness and long drives around a boring small city to get to each boring repetitive long race. I warezed the PC version for laffs too, it's just as bad. THUG 2 lasted a little time, it was 100%'d in about 3 weeks though. I'm now totally sick to the back teeth of skating games, with a grand total of over twelve THUG/THUG2 completions within the last 6 months of 2004. Half-Life 2 is excellently fun, played 3 3-hour sessions so far since Xmas and I'm a nice way through.

Xmas itself was average. I purchased 90% of my presents myself to save any hassle and the wastefulness of being given useless presents such as clothes n stuff. This 90% consisted of vinyl, CDs, a turntable, vinyl, CDs and vinyl. New Year was spent sitting soberly at a neighbour's house with the other neighbours, who are all 40 or 4. Two thousand and five anno domini has contained no mentionable events yet. Apart from making beatz.

Yes, I spent last Friday in the studio with mes amis. I shall leave them anonymous, but present the names Wig Man With Guitar and Hat Man With Screams. It's not really a studio, more a college French department's storeroom which happens to have two turntables and a mastering deck thing in it amongst the boxes of foreign literature and giant Friends posters. Wig busted out a rendition of The Trogdor Theme (see homestarrunner.net it's dot com for details) on his radioactive lime green electric bass stringed implement, and crooned the bulk of the lyrics. Hat proceeded to scream TROGDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRR at regular intervals, and a final crescendo of COTTAGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS. It was rather spectacular. Apparently his vocal prowess could be heard from the other end of the college. I however responded by applying some impromptu scratching over the top with a chav trance tune I found in the corner. The finished creation was a masterpiece, but the bastarding mastery thing refused to burn it to CD so we're returning on Monday to master it and perhaps create a second version available for remixing into a hip-hop club buster. Stay tuned glitchhop fans!!
On a semi-related note, check Wig's bird's blog ovar hear. It bears a tasty black gothikal theme to my untrained eye, unlike the pretty pink of my own document.

Anyway, I have a pressing engagement with boredom, CYAZ.

2005-01-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

¬_¬

Man vs Mango: A Tense Battle Of Brains And Brawn

2004-10-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

So I was sitting here, with me parents away to some part of Scandinavia for a weekend, and I felt rather peckish, thus I nipped downstairs for a snack. Browsing the cupboards revealed a range of small edible items, not least of which was a whole Yorkshire Tea Loaf. However, the item that caught my eye and captivated my stomach was a tin of sliced mango in syrup. Not knowing the drama awaiting me, I plucked the can from its resting place and examined its label. Finding it satisfactory, I proceeded to open the shiny metal cylinder to reveal the juicy delights contained within. Standard procedure, find electric tin opener, plug it in, hang tin on turning wheel, lower blade onto lid, press down handle. Instead of the top of the can being slowly and inexorably severed from the remainder, there was a metallic squeal of spinning wheels against tin. Removal of the container from the opener revealed that the blade could not pierce it, and that the turning wheels could not grip its sheer smooth surfaces. Bugger. Another three attempts resulted in a scratched yet victorious can, and a tin opener covered in metal shavings. My thoughts turned to the whereabouts and even the existence of a normal oldskool tin opener. I searched the drawers and cupboards until I found the giant box of miscellaneous implements that lurks under one bench. A brief rummage revealed no opener, but a particularly lethal corkscrew. One fit of battering later, and the tin had gained three ventilation holes on its bottom lid. As the red flush of rage cleared, it dawned upon me that now I was unable to attempt opening the top again as syrup would dribble out of the other end of the can, and that there was now no going back as the tin was punctured, but still holding its precious golden fruit. Resultant tests ended in a small dent from a breadknife whack, and a set of minor scratches from stabbing with various serrated objects. This was one tough motherfucker. One phone call to Copenhagen later, and that was three people who had no idea if we had a tin opener or not. For dramatic effect, I would like to say I despaired of the whole matter and fantasised about binning the mangoes and having some baked beans instead, but this would not be true. It was them or me, man against fruit, a battle to the death which could only be resolved with violence and bladed objects, just like ice hockey. I continued my painstaking hunt for a good old mechanical tin opener. Finally, after almost ten minutes, I chanced across a once-white item which on examination revealed itself to be exactly that! I took a deep breath and prepared to tackle the tin with my final weapon (before I resorted to hiring an electric saw that is). The first attempt failed, the flashing blade unable to take a grip, and the handle skidding against the metal. My second attack involved tilting the tin opener as far as I could with it still grabbing the edge of the tin. A heave, and a tight grasp on the tin opener forced the sharp edge down through the surface of the can. Success on the first task, now I had to slowly turn the handle and work my way around the edge until the can was totally decapitated. This went well, until alas, the lip of the tin bent under the applied force, its structural integrity severely compromised by the punctures, dents and other abuses. A brief wrestle with the opposite side revealed that it was too scratched to for the wheels to grip. A flash of inspiration hit me, and I grabbed a knife to prise the rest of the lid free. A bit of bending, and out slipped a slice of mango, resplendent in its golden fruityness. A tug more and the whole lot came tumbling out into my waiting bowl. I was victorious!

It wasn't even very nice.

Hello, I Am A Video Game Player

2004-09-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

And I like to play Video Games on my Video Game Console the Playstation Two.

Yes I am bored enough to compose a new entry for this blog, the above is the way I have been passing the time, although playing the same old games gets rather tiresome and there's a complete lack of new releases until nearer Christmas. I have now completed Tony Hawk's Underground a grand total of six times. I am not ashamed to say that I could probably list every goal and detail the changes between the difficulty levels on each of them, even down to the fact that on the Wallplant Combo goal on Sick you have to turn left at the end of your manual and continue on, instead of straight on like on Normal mode. Now that the fictional readers of this article are bored to sleep, I'll slip in the comment that I myself am considering the purchase of a skateboard, for no good reason. Alas, I am (to use a colloquial term for a moment) totally broke, due to the purchase of one hundred and twenty Great British pounds' worth of CD albums and eighty-two Great British pounds' worth of twelve-inch vinyl.

To spin off on a semi-random tangent linked only by minor fragments of logic existing solely in the higher reaches of my subconscious mind, my college timetable is rather queer this year. Monday to Wednesday I'm in all day except an early afternoon period free for luncheon, but Thursday and Friday I have a single early morning lesson per day. The worst element of this unusual scheduling strategy is the fact that Friday's only used period is a rather dire Mathematics lesson, which is quite probably my least favourite subject ever. The general consensus is that directly after this event of lecture, the entire class departs to the local public house to become inebriated and purge the horror from their short-term memory before it has a chance to settle and take root. I consider this an excellent course of action, and thus have vowed to follow it for as long as this state of affairs continues. I have recently begun to partake of alcoholic beverages as semi-regular intervals, generally imbibing medium quantities of either Fosters' or Woodpecker. I am contemplating upgrading my consumption to copious amounts, but as yet have not discovered an ample enough reason to become regularly and heavily intoxicated. Possibly attempts at interaction with the female gender will provide reason enough, as embarking on tasks such as that generally end up in failure and general angst on my part. Sweeping that dirty subject under the unwashed blue and grey nineteen-seventies-styled worn rug of life with the odd coffee stain in the shape of a two-headed cat's rear feet, I ought to finish tonight's blog composition soon as I have a 12'o'clock curfew for internet-based activity due to my current status of full-time college student. So, good morrow to you fine sirs who do not read this, I shall be off.

So.

2004-08-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

Yer, I'm still alive. Went to see that thar Bourne Supremacy, s'alright. Too much complicated conspiracy theory, and camerawork shakier than my grasp of Swahili (very), but an awesomecool.exe Moscow drift session in Ladas. The bloke manages to bash about a million other vehicles, but the car only stops once it's hit a wall head-on. The Russian arch-nemesis with the silver Walther is far leater though, carjacking a lady out of her Mercedes G-Wagen (oh yeah!) for the ultimate street-race finale. Action-wise, it was a pretty lame film.

Got the new Soulwax album, it's alright, heavier than the older stuff and more electronic, but it seems more commercialised and blandworthy. NY Excuse is fairly catchy, but it has o-so-annoying female Ozzie vocals, totally wannabe Kylie (who isn't that good in the first place, and her buttocks aren't really much special, whatever other people say). It'll take another few listens before I can make a proper judgement on the album, it seems okay but not the most excellent thing ever. No matter what the critics say, the new Prodigy album seems buyage-worthy, the tune off that BMW 1-series ad is from it, which is maybe worth the price itself. Girls is decent too, reminds me rather of Being Boiled in places, might try to slip it into my WIP megamix which is about to progress in a BB direction. The Way It is basically a cover of MJ's Thriller instrumental, quite boring TBH. Apart from that, I haven't heard any of the album, but I may still purchase...

Gaming-wise, I've gotten bored enough to pick up my PS2 controller again and play stuff, the stuff being Baldur's Gate DA2. It's remarkably relieving to walk up to somebody and smack them in the face with an axe. Especially when the axe is on fire. And you somehow are managing to swing one in each hand. Yes, carnage XXL, especially when you bring in fire-launching crossbows. Tony Hawk's Underground lasted a fair while, completed it about 3 times, only takes 5 hours or so, generally do the whole thing in 1 sitting (1am-6am one time, hardcore leatness! 8-D ). Wandered back to NFSU (eep), just cruising round circuits many times in a stock-look Dodge, began a new career mode game but got bored quickly. Boredom seems to be the name of the game currently, onyl another 3 weeks to waste until college gives me something to do. On that subject, I managed to not fail my As-levels, not even ICT, in which I made it pretty clear to the teacher bloke that he was shit, I didn't care about his subject, and I wanted to fail. An E grade then was quite amazingly high. Most stunning of all was my Computing grade, A (omg wtfbbq). For 3 hours' worth of coursework, and two 1h 30 exams that took less than an hour total, it's rather fab. It helped that the exams were simpleness 2 da xtreme, abundant with questions such as 'what does LAN stand for?'. Maths and Physics went okay despite the exams being evilhardnasty, I dropped a lot of marks on the first Maths paper but luckily it doesn't count any more as the government in their infinite wisdom decided to fuck about with the course for laughs, so technically now we've done half of 2nd year already, and we need to resit the first paper twice so it counts on the new syllabus. Cripes.

Music of the moment

2004-07-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

Dug out some older stuff, which is still awesome:

1. Human League - The Lebanon (12" Mix) (Virgin)
2. Solvent - My Radio (Extended Mix) (Ghostly)
3. Solvent - For You (Extended Mix) (Ghostly)
4. Radio Slave vs Sean Paul - Get Busy (Rekid Edit) (n/a)
5. Zoot Woman - Nobody Knows (Parts 1 & 2) (Wall Of Sound)
6. Ladytron - Seventeen (Droyds Mix) (Telstar)
7. Faithless - Mass Destruction (Tom Middleton Cosmos Mix) (Cheeky)
8. Bucci Bag - More Lemonade (Cagedbaby Babytronic Melonaid) (Southern Fried)
9. Freq Nasty - Boomin' Back Atcha (Rapless Original) (Botchit & Scarper)
10. Basement Jaxx - Cish Cash (Vitalic Remix) (XL)

The 2 Solvent EPs and the Zoot Woman album are to be bought ASAP, as they're utterly fab. There's a fair few other things that should be on the list of 'great stuff gettit now', but they were bumped off by Seventeen and Mass Destruction for their utterly phat basslines. I hate Sean Paul, but that mix of Get Busy is there cos it's a fab glitched-up synth track with his vocals crudely applied like a thin veneer of black paint to a gothic teen's bedroom walls.

bit more

2004-07-19T16:12:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, and I forgot, the weapon box opening anim is gone! Now it pops open instantly and you get a nice little menu to pick what you want to take, quite nice. The knife is gone too, now you just stand there for 5 minutes prodding them until they shoot you in the face with a powerful gun you can't get until you've got a certain ugly medal acquired by completing the whole game in 63 seconds or less three times. The good ol' air taser remains, although its burny power is diminished (ohnoes). One last whinge, the map doesn't pause the game, so while you're working out where the fuck to go to rescue some hostage who'll inevitably be shot later while you're lying on the floor bleeding (the normal state of agents nowadays it seems), you get ripped to bits by any passing combatants. Did I mention you can't see the auto-aiming reticle in the slightest?

'lol u cn get dvds thru a letetr bxo now???//'

2004-07-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I'm still alive. Crikey, blogspot has some new features, hay sup. Anyhow, Syphon Filter 4 (yes 4 omghax) finally got delivered, after the postman taking a week to figure out that DVD boxes actually fit through letterboxes! Some kewl vinyl turned up too, mainly The Breakfasterz and other equally obscure yet sublime works. I finally own both Psycho/Freefall and This Way on wax, proud I am indeed. But back to the topic at hand, SF4. You know in a game when you get killed on the training course that it's going to be nasty. Now a game where you get set on fire on the training... Imagine SF3, but with the all-conquering autoaim changed so at a distance of 3 feet not a single bullet hits the enemy. That's pretty much what SF4 plays like, but with the added bonuses of less accurate weapons, hundreds more enemies and they all have flak jackets. I mean, wtfhax. It's a special breed of game where you can get killed 10 times on the first level, and where by the 2nd the enemies have 1-shot-kill automatics. Not to mention it taking a whole forty-two lives to pass mission 5. Stop laughing. My disgust was combined with the fact that the create-an-operative mode is seemingly lacking in mullets and tuxedos. I mean what sort of solo counter-terrorist agent doesn't have a mullet? I had to settle for a moustache and some orange Bono shades. Even so, there's a complete lack of stuff when you first start, but when you finally complete the first mission (66 minutes with a target time of 11, hey, it's a bit stupid that a door is locked until you've walked past it, I mean who goes back to check doors are still locked) you get shiatloads™ of goodies. Just sombre camouflage though, a total lack of pink silk shirts to be found. No sneakers either, what sort of special ops doesn't pimp around in some shiny white Nikes? Anyway, sneakers, haha pun. Ahem. It's a bit shit, but not in the funny way SF1/2/3 were. They were crap games made good because of the easiness and funnyness, while this is a rather good game made crap by XTREME DIFFICULTY and a complete lack of any attempt at hilarity (even a bleedin' clown hat to wear would have been something!). Quite an opposite, but yet still the same game. Oh yeah, and that buggering new target reticule is invisible against anything except perhaps the moon. I'm just pissed cos it takes like 20 completions to get any sort of worthy weapon, and half them have to be online with geezers you don't know yet are expected to team up with...

Goodnight, and remember: 'You've changed, my radio, you've chaaaaaaanged...'

More old games

2004-07-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

Hay there. In recent days I've been experiencing long periods of uncreative boredom, resulting in much playing of old games at random. These have included such classics as The Getaway, which is unfortunately still fried. An attempt to play the game seems to result in a successful if slightly lengthier than usual loading time, but when it comes to actually play, the experience dies. After about a mile or so of driving, the game gives up trying to load the city off the frazzled medium and you drive into a white wall planted squarely across the street. The queer thing is, you cannot actually collide with this wall, your vehicle continues to drive, but without actually moving. The traffic also ceases to appear, leaving you alone on a single block surrounded by white, at which point you are forced to quit the game or die of boredom. That entertainment exhausted, I changed discs to Sky Oddyssey, a rather fun but rather old flight game. I still have sweet memories of piloting a nitrous-boosted Spitfire around the skies of its fictional locations, and flying inverted at over the speed of sound with an altitude of a couple of feet in a bright pink stealth bomber. Takeoffs were usually rather tedious in the non-jet aircraft, as you had to trundle along the runway gaining speed until you finally got enough lift to take to the skies (albeit only gradually or you'd fall out of the air and die in fire). My customised Spitfire however did not suffer from this problem. You would simply start the engine, get it moving, then wallop the large red nitrous button. The whole craft jerks slightly, then accelerates to over 170 miles per hour in about a second, causing all of the tyres to scream and smoke with the speed, and indeed it's going so fast you don't even have to pull up, it takes off itself. You're then free to use your limited fuel to fly around and graze mountaintops with your undercarriage to demonstrate to any spectators what big cojones you possess. Actually, forget that bit, the phrase 'graze mountaintops with your undercarriage' in a sentence mentioning cojones brings tears to my eyes. Anyway, I procured the CD-ROM from its case, and prepared to load it up and perform some aerobatics. But alas! The memory card containing my mostly-completed Sky Oddyssey savegame had disappeared, and as you start off with pretty much bugger all, and the starting biplane has as much accelerative power as half a dead bee with a hangover, I gave up and put it away. Next up was the classic Zone Of the Enders, yes, that mech one which came with a MGS2 demo. It holds the title of quite possibly the shortest game ever, taking approximately 3 hours to complete on super hard mode by someone who's never seen a games console in their life. Pretty much. I slapped in the disc, and was greeted by the unusual starting music, some sort of Japanese chillout which I can not for the life of me decide is either excellent or utterly crap. I started a new game, and just in time realised how soppy, lame and bad the cutscenes are. Skipping them, I prepared to 'kick some ass' in a giant mechanical Japanese fighting... thingy. You get fairly few moves, slash, shoot and a energised and moving version of each, and a shield. You get some totally useless side weapons too, and the all-conquering hilarious throw. The gameplay itself is pretty ordinary, see other mechs, fly over to other mechs, beat other mechs into an oily pulp. The only challenge you get is when the 'mummy' mechs get to a skill level of 3 later on, they have some sort of super-uber-omgsuppwnage-all-conquering-monster-power dual laser beam which vapourises anything near it (and is also THE best weapon to whore in multiplayer on any game ever). Thus, your only chance is to sneak up to it and bray it from behind until it falls to bits. The other plan is to grab one of its mates and throw it at it, causing a nice explosion and either seriously damaging or smashing to bits the both of them. If you're in the sort of mood where you disregard all the warnings about not destroying buildings which kill civilians, it's fun to find a nice tower block and put some ho right through it and out the other side. The entire game runs like this, with a little break in the middle where you pilot an enemy mech for a little while, which is pretty much the same as yours but lamer, having even less attacks. Blah blah, etc etc, weepy cutscene, blow up more stuff, end of game.

What next now? It depends what I dig out which hasn't lost its fun over the years. Aha, Parappa... (PS: Beard Master owns you all).

As a final note, today's quote for the day:
'Oh, proverbial pants, please not again!' - The Dewaele Brothers

Tunez of tha moment

2004-06-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

Decided to migrate this here from my rather defunct freewebs lollage site, this'll be updated whenever I'm bored enough to. Special mention this time to Armand van Helden's new track, sounds totally 1996, and is thus crap. Serge Santiago remix is however utterly fab, very nicely synthy. And what sort of name is Spalding Rockwell anyway?

Tunez of tha moment:

1. Autobots vs Sean Paul - Gimme The Boot (Side A) (White)
2. Autobots vs Sean Paul - Gimme The Boot (Side B) (White)
3. Crowdpleaser & St. Plomb feat. Selfish In Bed - Rather Be (Mental Groove)
4. Armand van Helden feat. Spalding Rockwell - Hear My Name (Serge Santiago Remix) (Southern Fried)
5. AC Lyte vs Usher - Yeah (A-Side) (White)
6. Cassius & Steve Edwards - The Sound Of Violence (Cosmo Vitelli Remix) (Virgin)
7. Autobots - Rocky (Distortionz Remix) (Autorock)
8. Inchie vs Merfie - Rowdy Time (Funkatech)
9. Syntax - Message (Serge Santiago Remix) (Illustrious)
10. Justin Timberlake - Like I Love You (Deep Dish Zig Zag Radio Remix) (Jive)

Lot of UK breaks here, and my Radio Slave phase has moved on to Serge's solo work.

27/06/04

1. Agent Sumo - Ain't Got Time To Stop (Sumo's Roller Disco Mix) (Virgin)
2. Royce Da 5'9" & Eminem vs Serge Santiago - She's The One (White)
3. Mantronix - Bassline (Sleeping Bag)
4. Benny Benassi - Satisfaction (Poxy Music No School Mix) (Hussle)
5. Soft Cell - Monoculture (Jan Driver Remix) (Cooking Vinyl)
6. Carl A. Finlow - Polygon Girl (Device)
7. Soulwax - Conversation Intercom (Vocoder Intermix) (PIAS)
8. Luniz - I Got 5 On It (Urban Takeover Radio Remix) (Urban Takeover)
9. Depeche Mode - I Feel Loved (Peter Rauhofer Remix) (White)
10. White Stripes - Seven Nation Army (Radio Slave Re-Edit) (White)

Electrobasstastic.

15/06/04

1. Coldplay - God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (White label B 'ColdRMXplay' mix) (White)
2. Coldplay - God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (White label A 'ColdRMXplay' mix) (White)
3. Black Strobe - Chemical Sweet Girl (Radio Edit) (Output)
4. Cassius & Steve Edwards - The Sound Of Violence (Virgin)
5. N*E*R*D - She Likes To Move (FakeID GeekMix) (n/a)
6. Breakmachine vs Azzido da Bass - Streetdance (Lionel Vinyl Breaks Mix) (n/a)
7. Hashim - Al Naafiysh (The Soul) (Cutting Records)
8. Adult. - Don't You Stop (Ersatz Audio)
9. Dead Or Alive - You Spin Me Round 2003 (Punx Sound Check vs Princess Julia Remix) (Epic AUS)
10. Limp Bizkit - Take A Look Around (Timbaland Instrumental) (Interscope)

Superstar DJ style y'all.

10/05/04

PS: buy the new Black Strobe, Chromeo and Tiga singles, I want them to be popular cos I have the rare promos which would be valuable if they were. D;

yawn

2004-06-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

sup, it's 4:51 am and I'm sooooooooooo tired. I'm like just chillin' here ramblin' to an ol' homie about matters of life, lurve and laundry. Totally f'real. It's gotten to the 'random anecdotes' stage now after several hours, I just told the one about me, my best mate's girlfriend, and his dad's wardrobe (not like it sounds, honest guv!). I think about now I ought to be well asleep, even on a more insomniac night, but here I am, typing a blog for the hell of it. Yes yes y'all, keeping it real like a G. There goes the 'type lyke a gangstarr' stage of tired tedium, what comes next only... er... someone knows. 4:58 am now. Might go sleep, it's light. Dawn was about 4:25 this morning, no sunrise cos it's cloudy. I still need to make my bed, good luck to me doing that at 5am making no noise. So anyway, might have me another ramble tomor... sorry, later today. Oh, there it is, five o'clock in the morning. I need a piss. The conversation has upped its ante, we've begun to forget what we're saying and the ever-useful phrase 'shit happens' has been mentioned for the 6th time so far! It's getting truly intense. Sleep beckons. 0503 hours, nobody ought to be up at this time except fools with no life who spend all their type typing stuff on the int... oh.

Crap Games, And How Awesome They Are

2004-06-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

So, I just played some new street racing game demo called 'Juiced'. If it was anything more than an alpha version it'll die painfully when released. Put simply, half the things didn't work, the auto gears which you couldn't disable were crap, and all the models were flat colours with no texture. The car handling was okay, but the included Supra had a tendency to randomly spin its wheels when taking any corner over the legal speed limit, which caused the gearbox to panic, shift into top gear, then run off and hide somewhere under a blanket. The game engine isn't intelligent enough to realise different gears are actually different, thus the wheels keep spinning, except now at 150mph instead of 35, meaning the car becomes harder to control, and when you finally get some grip the car virtually stalls because it's in 6th gear at 15 miles per hour. The damage system, highly cited as one of the main selling points of the game, basically meant that if you touch anything, bits of the car wobble and eventually crease a bit. After two bumps, you get a warning message and all your precious nitrous (which you can't even actually use in the demo seemingly) leaks away. Another hit and your engine power halves. Kerbs also are inaccessible terrain for such groundsnorting beasts as a stock 1.8 Toyota, causing any mild wide drift on a corner to result in your car imploding. Combining this with the amazing understeer/oversteer only handling means that the only reason I didn't get annoyed at the game was because I was laughing at how bad the graphics are. I had a game that graphically 'good' in 2000, and it ran many times better. Nobody seems to have explained to 'Juice Games' the concept of textures, two of the cars are blank colour with painted-on lights, and the other has garish thick lines to mark the panel gaps. Don't forget that the menu's Quit button is greyed out and unusable, but this is redeemed by the fact it crashes to desktop after every race. I think their last publisher was right in pulling the last game they made if it was anything like this.

Covnersing with a friend of mine on this matter, he started going on about some new street racing game called SRS, but when I pointed out the developer last worked on Max Power Racing it seemed to shut him up a bit. Max Power Racing was possibly the most crap thing ever. It also held the dubious honour of being the only game ever to have a target market of charves. The sort of vehicular selection was along the lines of lowered Nissan Micras, and if you got really far, possibly a Renault Clio with a rear wing! The 'ultimate' car in the game was a Cossie which somehow had several thousand horsepower and did a few hundred MPH. Coming to my point, it was one of those games you play loads multiplayer simply because it's so bad. Take Syphon Filter 2, where you have to be a metre away from someone facing in the opposite direction to hit them with a knife. It's possibly still one of the funniest multiplayer games I've played.

Imagine this: a game contains, hidden in every level, a magical weapon with shiatloads™ of ammo, an almost limitless range, killing with a single shot, and each shot causing a giant explosion which kills anything within a 10-metre radius, including the user. This was the Syphon Filter M79. Most multiplayer games were a scramble to get to it first, pausing only to shoot the other person in the head, chest or torso with your pistol for an instant kill at any range, or to fumble with the controls and fall to your death in one of many unexplained bottomless pits lying around these inner-city locations. Once you did have the M79, the only way you could be stopped is for the other player to somehow get within 10 metres of you without you spotting them on your omnicognisant personal radar, so that when you shot them you would also be destroyed in the ensuing meltdown. Then, with both players dead, there would be a manic sprint for the dropped weapon, with the aforementioned diversions again. When everyone would arrive on the scene and find it vanished because they were too slow, back to the M79 spawn they would go. The only weapon that could compare to the M79 was the equally rare K3G4. This fired some sort of magic bullet which dissolved armour with a single shot and of course killed with single shots to an unprotected fleshy body. It also held several hundred rounds, and fired a shot approximately every 1/10000th of a second. Unfortunately, this weapon could normally only be procured from weapon boxes. These innocent-looking grey cuboids required the player to stand next to and stare at them for several seconds before they were intimidated enough to reveal their contents in white text over the light grey background. Then, if you chose to take the chance of procuring the weapon from inside, you had to remain completely idle and hold triangle for a moment or two, until you were locked into a lengthy unabortable ritual during which you managed to prize open the block and slowly lift your exalted price from its greyer interior, all while remaining totally vulnerable to enemy gunfire. Thus your enemy, on spotting you battling with the box for the superweapon of doom, simply had to stroll over to your location and calmly shoot you in the testicles as you were bent over struggling with the load. This would cause a catastrophic failure in the fabric of the universe. As you keeled over, manhood in tatters and life extinguished, the weapon would be flung from your arms and land on the ground nearby, allowing the opponent to amble past and nab it from your dying grasp. After that, they would generally camp where they wouldn't be spotted and obliterate you as you passed. Yes, the simple weapon box, the most dangerous thing yet discovered by man in any game.

Note I commented that your enemy would shoot your in the testicular glands, rather than knife you. This is because of the wonderfully illogical, unpredictable and totally awful behaviour of the Syphon Filter knife. A general knife fight would follow these lines: enemy player spots player standing forlornly in an open space. Enemy sprints, sorry, lollops over behind the player and swings his hefty knife, causing him to become totally immobile for several seconds from the intense physical stress caused my tearing a knife through the resisting air. Despite visually passing through the player half a dozen times on its jittery journey, the knife would nevertheless not touch them in the slightest. As the enemy struggles to regain consciousness after the massive energy loss of moving his arms, the player simply steps forward, never once looking anywhere near the enemy, and waves his blade vaguely in a random direction. The arteries in the enemy's neck spontaneously explode, and he slides to the ground in a fountain of blood, his game is over. After a few minutes of immobility, the player finally recalls how to move and bobs off in search of an M79. In reality, it was never this simple. Both players would be running round in circles like headless llamas trying desperately to stay in the enemy's view so as to remain invincible to the metal flashing through the air, while simultaneously attempting to make the blood supply to their brain rupture itself by waving at trees with a dagger.

Yes. It was funny, but it was also very, very crap. There ought to be some sort of moral, but there isn't. Deal with it.

aite?

2004-06-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

So yes, a blog. I was sitting rambling nicely to an old friend, quite a pleasant chap for the odd ramble, and I thought 'hay!'. After a few moments' cogitation to reassemble my thought patterns after the emergence of this new inspiration, I decided to create one of these newfangled blogs just as that fellow had previously in his life to catalogue obscurities. After much contemplation of which of the multitude of diversely-coloured templates to select, I finally settled on this rather feminine pink scheme, reflecting slightly my current emotions of mildly happy tedium, combined with overextended discotheque re-edits of teen-targeted pop music as a background soundtrack. Here it is then, my own personal blog, soon to be polluted with random babble.