Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Diggnation Live 08

Had an AMAZING time in London with Lisa. We got the train up to London, arrived at about 5. Then it was a case of hopping on the tube and DLR to our hotel which was right next door to the Excel Arena. The DLR wasn't running for the last two stops so we walked it with a short cut through some weird industrial area, almost getting lost but not quite! We had a pretty good idea which direction to walk in!

Anyway we found the hotel ok - it had a weird pod in the room for the en-suite bathroom. It was nice inside but very strange... here's a capture from the Ibis hotel virtual tour.



After a quick freshen up we headed for the Arena - got in there nice and early, and got our pass. There was nobody at the door of the hall cos we were so early so we went to grab a burger - but when we got back the queue was snaking all around the exhibition units!! As soon as they opened the doors to the hall google opened the free beer stand. We got ourselves a good seat before we got the 'Googlebeers'

Here's Revision3 CEO, Jay Louderback giving us a quick insight to the Googlebeers stand...



About 10 mins before the show I ran out there to grab some beers. I only took 4 - 2 for me and 2 for Lisa. I didn't take the piss like some people did. Some people were coming back into the hall with a laptop bag full of bottles and as many as they could carry in their arms. A bit cheeky if you ask me. But still, thanks Google. I almost feel obliged to upgrade my Gmail to a premium membership ... Almost... not quite!

So, yeah, it was cool. We made some new friends, had a laugh before Kevin and Alex came on stage. There were all kinds of people there from your stereotypical geeks with slick side-parting, glases and pens in the top pocket of their cheap shirts, to skater kids with piercings and long hair... and everything between. Some had their laptops with them, there was one dude playing Spore while we were waiting in the queue to be let in. Here's some more pics - starting with a short clip of all the people in the hall...









After the show there was an after party at the bar next door. It was sponsored by Digg and Facebook - I think the founder of Facebook was there but I didn't know what hee looked like. We had a few drinks, chatted to random people and got to meet Kevin and Alex as well as the guys behind the camera Glen and Prager. Kevin and Alex did a thing where they were giving out freebies to people who could answer the right questions.... this is where I use other peoples photos....



...and now a few from my photos...





The rest of the photos can bee seen in my flickr photoset.

All in all we had such a great time.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

So how are ya....?

The last thing I can remember was seeing Metromony at 60 Million Postcards last Friday .... and today is THURSDAY!!!!!!!! This was probably due to the fact that it was indeed another late one, and also due to the fact that I was indeed very much pissed as a lord!

Although through moments of clarity I do recollect a band practice on Sunday. And that we wrote some tunes that were far too clever for their own good. So much so that when we had another band-camp on Tuesday I couldn't remember anything we did. Luckily Lee recorded everything we did using the iSight mic on his macbook - there's not a bad sound on those little things y'know?!

Anyway, Friday was a confusing one for me - I also wanted to go see True Swamp Neglect play their last gig at The Winchester as a farewell to Barney. But True Swamp ended up not playing and were replaced by my MB101 and Dutch Husband. Yet, I was informed, via the marvels of SMS, that James, Scott, Ben, Potts, Christian and James's brother were going to 60M for the Metromony gig. WHY DID THEY HAVE TO BE ON THE SAME NIGHT???? (sorry about the capitals there - my CAPS LOCK got stuck). I chose Metromony @ 60M.
pics...








Click ME to see all pics on flickr

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Blind Voyeurs: In The Studio - Ep2 - BIG CITY

I've just uploaded a new Blind Voyeurs studio video. It's a bit shorter than the last one. This one was filmed around Spring '08 - just never got round to editing it.

So here it is in all it's Vimeo glory. I've also uploaded it to youtube on BlindVoyeursTV.


Blind Voyeurs: In The Studio - BIG CITY from Steve Beck on Vimeo.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Diggnation Live at London FOWA Expo 08

I've just booked my Pass for this year's Future Of Web Applications Expo at the London Excel Arena to see Diggnation recorded live. I missed them last year so I'm really excited about it. We're probably gonna have to get a hotel or something to stay the night cos we'll be going to the after party!

For those that don't know what Diggnation is here's the episode from their last live Diggnation at NVision in San Jose...

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Pale White Dot...?

I can see light at the end of the tunnel, the end is near approaching... yep, that's right we've nearly finished the Blind Voyeurs' debut album. We've got a small list of a few bits here and there on each track that need tidying up. We've been clipping our lovies and sweeping the dust under the carpet for so long now that the album has completely changed direction from original vision. But all for the better me thinks - it actually 'feels' like a complete body of work.

In the last 14 or so months some of our favourite songs/tunes have been removed and new ones have surfaced that have raised the bar. We've made some controversial decisions and will be making MORE controversial decisions in the next couple of months. We've had band members come and go and then come back again (and then go...) We've also got a new top secret weapon that can only be unveiled in 2009.

In the next 2 to 3 weeks things should all be being finalised (I'm not saying too much yet cos you never know what might happen) then it's time to look at artwork and inlay cards etc.

People keep asking us 'how long does it take to make an album???' Well, the answer to that is - as long as it has to!

Y'see the thing is, we all have full-time jobs and we have social and family lives to lead. And then there's holidays and sicknesses etc. If we were a fulltime band working 9 to 5 on nothing but music, you could compress all the time we've spent on this album quite easily into less than 6 weeks. Don't forget that we're doing everything ourselves AND learning everything from scratch.

We've also switched our recording software platform 3 times since we started and new hardware equipment has been purchased halfway through from mixing desks to bass amps to microphones! Add to that the fact that we all really care about this project - it's a complete labour of love - so we're never using the "That'll do" mindset.

And then there are the gigs. We found out at the end of last year that with a project this big we can't concentrate on recording and rehearse for 2 or 3 gigs a month at the same time. So in 2008 we decided to tone it down a bit... until eventually not gigging at all!! It was tough turning down gig offers - and I still hate doing it - but we had to try and prioritise. Gig or record. One or the other. If we attempted to do both, each would suffer. We would have ended up with a string of shit gigs followed with a dessert of a half-arsed album. That would've pissed everyone off!

Anyway, I don't want to build it up - in fact I dunno why I rambled as much as I did. It all just came blurbing out! I do that sometimes. Anyway... enough for now.

Monday, September 29, 2008

The Archive

Woo! Double post today!! I've just seen this video and I have to share it with whoever occasionally glances at this corner of the internets.


The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.


Paul Mawhinney was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. Over the years he has amassed what has become the world's largest record collection. Due to health issues and a struggling record industry Paul is being forced to sell his collection.

This is the story of a man and his records. I hope you enjoy it.

Home Alone

So Lisa's buggered off to Wales for 4 nights. Which leaves just me and the cat left to fend for ourselves!! She went yesterday and I already miss Lisa loads - just don't know what to do with myself. But that being said I can always find things to distract myself - I've got loads of little tweaks to do with the BV album mixing, I'm learning how to use Final Cut properly (God it's sooo fuckin in-depth and professional! FACTOID: The Coen Brothers used Final Cut to edit and colourize one of my favourite films - No Country For Old Men)



I've also got The Force Unleashed to play - which is totally frickin awesome! Absolutely love the storyline in this. If you're a Star Wars fan (which I clearly am) then you have to check this out because the story is mindblowing!



Last night I finished off watching series 3 of Battlestar Galactica. Woah, what a finale?!?!?! Battlestar is, IMHO, probably one of the the best sci-fi shows in the history of all TV ever - it's sooooo realistic and dark and the characters are deep and ... and... I could go on but I won't!

Before Lisa left we popped into ASDA to grab a few things and just as you walk in they had boxes and boxes of Carlsberg and Kronenberg (18 bottles) for a fiver each!! So we grabbed a box of each - there were loads of freshers there buying them by the trolley load! So, all in all, I've got loads to keep me occupied, 36 bottles of beer in the fridge and a chippy/chinese/indian take-aways just round the corner .... I think I'll survive!! :)

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Why Should Rock Stars Expect To Be Rich?

The future record industry simply won't be able to maintain the kind of salaries that pop stars of the last century were used to.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

stevebeck.co.uk

Yep, that's right. I've registered my own domain. It's www.stevebeck.co.uk. It only redirects to this blog at the moment but that's basically what I wanted it for. It was only 99p for the first year and then £2.99 for every year after that. I've no need to pay for hosting because my blog is already hosted by Blogger. So update your bookmarks if you have em cos stevebeck.co.uk is my new front door. Yay!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Dead Set on E4

Just head about this new show called Dead Set coming to E4. It's a horror spin-off version of Big Brother Unlike the parent show, this will be a straight dramatic horror featuring the shows presenters, but with actors playing the house mates. The plot involves a zombie outbreak which strands the housemates inside the Big Brother house. Although the house is one of the only places left were people can shelter from the zombie attack, the infection soon seeps in and what follows is an unimaginable terror.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Blind Voyeurs: In The Studio - Episode 1

Jamming in the studio Saturday 13th Sept 08



The BV boys have a new studio to play in. Interestingly it's situated underneath a pole dancing studio in Southbourne! This is the first in hopefully many insights into what actually goes on in there. This week we decided to take a break from recording and decided to have a jam - to see if we come up with anything interesting.




Blind Voyeurs: In The Studio - episode 1 from Steve Beck on Vimeo.




Blind Voyeurs on Myspace

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Polish Film Posters

I've just stumbled upon this incredible collection of Polish Film Posters. They are so different from the American/English/Rest-of-the-world's posters it's unbeleivable. I don't know much about why they're like this. I can only assume that there was some weird copyright laws involved and so they had to draft in artists to create new designs. Some of them are so far removed from the actual film content. It's completely blown my mind. I will say that some of them are shit by todays professionally photoshopped examples but you have to understand that these were probably made on a zero budget, most in the 70's or 80's, they had to completely design their own font (not download from the internet it like you would today) and work with awkward and messy screen printing processes.




Apocolypse Now



STAR WARS - The Empire Strikes Back



Alien


Click me to see the rest...

Monday, September 08, 2008

JB records guitar


JB records guitar, originally uploaded by SteveBeck.

We had our first band practice at the new rehearsal studios on Sunday. Sound was good - nice and punchy. We re-recorded the guitars for The Christening because it was too muddy. We decided to record them totally clean. Also added a few incidental drum and percussion sounds here and there in the parts that will adjoin Chistening with Pale Blue Dot. Other recorded parts were lo-fi drums for Keep It On The Road.

The practice room is situated in the basement of a Pole-Dancing dance studio. It was empty - they have classes on Thursday. There was an old tuneless upright piano in there which was a bit of fun to tinker on. Thinking about using it for something in the album. Could be pretty haunting

Friday, September 05, 2008

Psycho Cat in a box!


Psycho Cat in a box!, originally uploaded by SteveBeck.

Tilly loved this shoe-box! She still thinks she a kitten and tries to sleep in it.

The Watchmen

I've just started reading this last night....



I'm only about 30 pages in but already I'm hooked. I'm reading it in preparation for the movie. Here's the trailer...



Boner!

Monday, September 01, 2008

Zizzi in Bournemouth

Just a quick post to say that I thoroughly recommend Zizzi restaurant in Bournemouth. It's a pizza/pasta type restauant and it where Yellow River used to be on Richmond Hill. Great decor, amazing food, really nice staff and an open kitchen creates a really friendly atmosphere. Check it

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

End of the month... busy busy busy!!

OK, so it turned out that I'm no longer bored of the internet - just that sometimes it can be a chore going to all my different haunts and checking messages, updates and friends requests. And I know I haven't blogged in a while. Finding time is hard. I could do micro posts, I s'pose, but I kinda do that on facebook: 'Steve is ... doing his chores', 'Steve is ... out with his mates' etc etc.

One thing I thought I was going to blog about was Endorse It In Dorest 2008. It was my first time at this local festival and had planned to edit together a movie. But it turned out that it was taking me forever to do because I'm finding iMovie HD restricing. It's the movie editor that came with my macbook. It's pretty powerful but it's a sequential editor, not a multitrack editor which makes it more difficult to get timings right. It's fine for just stringing stuff together though - I just prefered Sony Vegas. Anyway, all the clips are on Flickr. Check out the slideshow below...



I had a great time at this festival. Although, Saturday had heavy rain throughout the WHOLE day. So me and Lisa decided to come home for that day and go back on the Sunday. It was a wise move!

James Burtn also announced that he'd finally popped the question to Emma. Yep, that's right, they're getting married. So a big congrats to them - such a great couple. They were made for eachother (and Emma has the patients of a saint - not many people would put up with James's ways!) We were in Endorse It when we heard the news via text... they were in France... so we had a drink in their honour.

When they got back we had a massive party at Kai's house. I don't remember much about it thanks to Marianna's homemade Casasha. But I know it was a good one.

Me and Lisa dug deep and scraped together some pennies to buy a shiny new 24" iMac. We had to for several reasons. Mainly because of Lisa's Degree (at least that was my main excuse). My old PC was really started to creak and within the last 2 weeks of it's life it managed to catch a particularly nasty virus. I managed to contain and remove the virus but not before it messed up my OS. I couldn't switch the thing off. Everytime it shut down it would restart itself. And I couldn't browse the internets either. It would load up google but then I couldn't go to any other page! Oh and dodgy pop-ups would appear even when I didn't have a browser open. I ran a virus checker on full deep scan and it managed to detect 27 viruses!! I couldn't trust my machine anymore. I could reformat it but then I'd lose everything I had on it. I'd had it for a long time so it was time for a new piece of hardware. Enter then new 24" iMac with 4GB Ram and 1TB Hard Drive.

After it arrived our bloody washing machine decided to die on us!! Talk about timing! Luckily I'd paid off my credit card some months back and hadn't touched it since so the new washing machine went on the card. So now I'm pretty skint!

Monday, August 04, 2008

Bored of the internet?!?

I dunno, maybe I am. I've not logged onto here for an update for a long time. I hardly use Facebook to talk to people. I occassionally log onto MySpace to check messages but ignore friend requests (There's 3 pages on my own profile and about 12 pages on Blind Voyeurs' profile) I've not uploaded to my flickr. I've posted once or twice on Solid Air messageboard and Never go to b3ta anymore (hmmm I must check that out)

These days I've mainly been on youtube. I've only posted 1 video about 3 weeks ago but I regularly log on to watch vids - current favourites being 21stCenturyCat (for a bit of vlogging and comedy) and SFLogicNinja (for really useful tutorials for Logic 8)

I'm often checking out news on digg.com - occassionaly commenting. But that's about it. I'm kinda bored of participating in conversations. I just use it to mainly read or watch stuff. I think it's just got to a stage where I've got so many profiles on so many different sites that it just becomes a chore to go to them all everyday. The profiles I've talked about here are just a few. There are a load that are more neglected than these.

Don't worry. I'm sure I'll snap out of it!

Friday, May 23, 2008

GTA has got me and not letting go!

Sorry about the lack of posts. GTA IV is to blame mostly! Whenever I got a spare moment I'm on that thing plugging away at those missions, sniping people, stealing cars, killing prostitues etc.

That being said, I HAVE been having a life....



I went to see Iron Man with Lisa (after a really nice meal in Wagamamas). 2 words about the film ... 'fucking incredible'! Robert Downey Jr is amazing as Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Jeff Bridges is unbelieveably brilliant! The storyline is totally believable and solid, the acting is superb, the sprinkling of comedy had me laughing out loud, the effects were seamless and it had the best cameo of Stan Lee ever! It will have to be owned on Blu-Ray when it comes out.

I've been to 60 Million Postcards this week twice - once to see Maz perform her RubyMusic stuff live and give her a bit of support, and the second time was to go to the 'It Came From Japan' evening (I write about that on my Bi-Polar Bears blog)

I've been to see my dad during the bank holiday weekend

I watched the Snooker final.

...and the footbal final with Chealsea V Man U (that's probably my only football entry on this blog!)

Been getting back into Heroes


I received my NIN Ghosts Deluxe Edition in the post this week. Chuffed!

We played a gig at 60 Million Postcards for Solid Air - everything went really smoothly... apart from the very end where the last track fell apart because of technical difficulties (although, nobody in the audience actually noticed - they all thought it was part of the song!)

Oh and I've shaved my head!

Thursday, May 08, 2008

H2-Woah!

I've just been forwarded an email about a news article on BBC News website from Lisa. It's entitles Bournemouth homes get fast fibre.

Bournemouth has been picked as the first UK town to get super-fast fibre via the sewers.

It is part of a plan from fibre firm H20 to extend its underground sewer networks from businesses to consumers.

Work will begin on the network within the next six months and more towns will be announced in coming months.

It will bring broadband of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second) to 88,000 homes in the Dorset town and is the largest scheme of its kind in the UK.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Grand Theft Auto IV

Not much to say here - you know what it's all about, you know you have to own it. I've had it since Friday and I just have to say it's way better than I could ever have hoped. Fantastic!

Friday, April 25, 2008

New music video for Blind Voyeurs

So, I figured it'd be good to submit something to Vimeo as I love that site and I thought why shouldn't I showcase some of my material!? This video is a short snippet of some of my live visuals for Blind Voyeurs gigs put to some music. The tune is called Chemical Burns.

New tune + New Visuals = New Music Video.



Blind Voyeurs - Chemical Burns (DEMO v1.02) from Steve Beck on Vimeo.


It's also on YouTube. If you've got a profile on there and want to fave it, comment it, rate it. Feel free

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Digg: Free New Nine Inch Nails Song, "Discipline"

Found on Digg.com (for those interested)...

Trent Reznor is an amazing man, just put your email address in to get the download link and check your email to download Discipline, the new single

read more | digg story

UPDATE: I just downloaded it, listened to it, didn't really care for it much. It was NIN by numbers if you ask me. But you might like it. And as it's a free download that's also DRM free that's a bonus. It's better to download it for free and then decide whether you like it or not than to go buy it on CD in HMV, take it home, listen to it and THEN decide you don't like it.

Eye eye

I can't quite remember the last thing I was dreaming about this morning but I know that I was about to apologise to someone in my dream before my alarm went off and woke me up. That annoyed me. So I hit snooze, went back into slumber land for 5 minutes so I could apologise to this guy and finish off my dream. I have such a guilty conscience that I even have to make ammends with imaginary people!! What's that all about?!?

Anyway, then I finally woke up properly my right eye was all blurry. I must've been sleeping on it. It's happened before and it normally corrects itself. But now it's nearly 10:00am and I still can't see out of my right eye properly! It's freaking me out a bit!!!!

(Lisa's just texted me saying that she'll have to get me an eye patch!!! Yaaarrrr Jim lad!!!)

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

I'm on the Radio tonight

...with my band, Blind Voyeurs. Here's a Copy&Paste of our Myspace Blog post...

We'll be on Hope FM tonight between 7pm and 8pm (GMT). We'll be playing 4 tracks from the upcoming album and chatting with the hosts about stuff. Listen to the stream online here...

http://www.hopefm.com/

...or tune your analogue dial to 90.1 FM - but you'll need to be very local as their range is pretty short. If you listen in online be sure to have pop-ups enabled on your browser.


Hope you can tune in

Textual Intercourse 1 - IBS

A text conversation between me and Lisa....

Lisa: We have a weeks extension on our hard GIS map assignment
Me: That's good news baby. I'm having a really shit day. My brain's not working, eerything I'm doing is wrong, the coffee machine's broken ... I could go on but I won't. Wanna go to Boscombe at lunch, coming?
Lisa: Ok, I'm having a shite day now 2. have to ring mortgage company as they're being arseholes. Will get my shit 2gether & jump on a bus asap x

...2 mins...

Lisa: On the bus, dya fancy The Percy 4 lunch? I could do with an alcoholic beverage?

(at this point I should explain that 'The Percy' is a pub on the edge of Boscombe High Street)

Me: If it's not too busy yeah. Xx
Lisa: OK ill check it out, what dya want 2 drink if its quiet?
Me: I dunno. Pint of Fosters? I really shouldn't be having booze today. I was thinking more about going to either Costa or the other coffee shop down by MacDonalds xx
Lisa: Ok, actually I fancy a maccy ds now?
Me: Maccy D's = IBS in a bun

As I was typing that last text she rang. I explained what I was typing so we decided to meet at somewhere completely different for lunch so as to prevent potential tummy troubles. We met up and went to a nice little cafe opposite the Opera House (the name escapes me) and had Cappacino with Chicken, Pesto and Mozzerella panini.

It arrived. The side salad had a sweet vingarette. Ate everything. I realised I was gonna be late getting back to work so I left at 1:51 (it's a 10 min walk back)

On the way back I had IBS.

Dammit!

Music - recording, watching, listening

So, I've got my new mixing desk and some new mics. (Alesis Multimix16 USB2 and a couple of Shure mics) Tried them out last night and they work a treat. I wanted to record this song that's been in my head for the last couple of days but I felt too self aware with the window open - it was so fuckin hot yesterday! Can't wait to try recording some proper tracks live with the full band. Need some more mic stands though.

I watched Jools Holland last night. It was cool to see The Charlatans with some new stuff. Tim Burgesses hair was a bit weird though - not that that really matters. Was interesting to see Was Not Was still pushing 'Walk The Dinosaur'. And there was an awesome Japanese drum band called Yamato Drummers that totally blew my mind.

Priorities?

I had a dream last night that we got burgled. All I could think about was "Ooh look how much room we've got" - not "Fuck! Where's me stuff??"

Woke up to find the kitchen window wide open!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Don't cry over spilt coffee

So, yesterday was a bit of a nightmare in that it was raining and I had to get up to go to work. Some days I don't mind having to earn a living but this was one of those days that I knew was going to be a bad start to a weird week.
Today (Tuesday) I sprung out of bed in an attempt to apply the typical English tally-ho "pull yourself together" type attitude - I was even singing the theme tune to Dallas (I dunno where that came from?!)

It was all going well until I got to work to grab myself a coffee. My usual brew (number 35 - instant coffee, white with sugar) came out as a weak milky water!! Undeterred, I went for a cappacino. I couldn't see if it was like the other coffee as it was covered in froth - as cappacinos generally are. I tried to blow the froth out of the way but that didn't work. So I gave it a sip. Burnt my lip and spilt half of it on my clean white shirt from the reflex action! Muthafucka!

Well, at least I've got a half day today!

Monday, April 21, 2008

grabbing your attention!


grabbing your attention!, originally uploaded by SteveBeck.

I HATE mondays!!! I'm at work and I don't want to be!

GET .... ME ..... OUT .... OF ..... HERE!!

Stormy bus journey 1


Stormy bus journey 1, originally uploaded by SteveBeck.

It was chucking it down last night. Thunder and lightening too. But it wasn't cold - it felt more like a tropical storm!

This is Boscombe

On the bus


On the bus, originally uploaded by SteveBeck.

on the way to Lee's. He offered to make us a slap-up roast! It was fuckin HUGE!!!!!!!! I still feel fat today

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Blind Voyeurs - Stoner Jam

Here's my first video from Vimeo. Wanted to test how long my videos can be cos YouTube is limited to 10 minutes. It appears that the only limit on Vimeo is by the size of the video file! Sweet.


Blind Voyeurs - Stoner Jam from Steve Beck on Vimeo.

Vimeo

Just discovered a nice video site called Vimeo. It's like YouTube but without all the pointless videos of some guy being kicking in the nuts! This one's more about art and small magical packets of peoples lives. The videos have a better compression and are a lot better quality than YouTube. There's even a HD section. I've signed up, gonna start making videos and put them on there. Here's some of the cool stuff that you can find on there...



Stairwell from Ted on Vimeo.


HV20 Canon LOCUSTS - The Eighth Plague from scope2000 on Vimeo.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Pitchfork.tv

Check it out! It's a new video site from pitchfork.com. They have videos of live gigs, interviews, exclusive videos etc of lots of really cool bands. It's currently one of my favourite sites. Bookmark it

Thursday, March 27, 2008

The Apprentice

I watched The Apprentice last night. Just caught the end of it actually. It's a great programme to watch if you enjoy seeing smug naive toffs make fools of themselves. Take this clip from last night's episode for example...



The guy in the middle did well considering. He nominated himself as team leader but the toffs didn't listen to him, purely based on the fact that he's 'lower class' than them. What a couple of pricks! And how slimey is that Nicolas?!?! This series could well be compulsive viewing

Portal

Well, as you can imagine I've been busy with my lovely new console (PS3). Discovered a new gem called Portal. It's part of the Orange Box which has Half Life 2, Half Life Episodes 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2 and, of course, Portal. I bought it cos I'd heard a lot about Portal from the Totally Rad Show and really wanted to try it as it sounded interesting. Believe me it's MORE than interesting... it's fuckin AMAZING! I've not played a game that gripped me like that for a loooooong time.



For those of you that don't know what Portal is here's a excerpt from the wikipedia entry...

Portal is a single-player first-person action/puzzle video game developed by Valve. The game consists of a series of puzzles which must be solved by teleporting the player’s character and other simple objects using a single handheld device, with the goal of getting to an objective point.

It has a really dark sense of humour. If you have a next gen console I seriously recomend you BUY IT!! Here's one of my favourite levels - Level 9


Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Playstation 3 RULES!!!



I've just got myself a new PS3! It's such a good machine. Really user friendly. I'm not anti-Xbox360 though, just want to make myself clear on that, but I just found that the user interface on the PS3 has a better feel than the clunky and confusing Xbox360 ... and yes I have tried navigating the menus. Also, I was really un-impressed with Halo3. When I played it it just felt like Halo2 but with a slightly better shine! Xbox360 has an add-on to enable you to watch HD-DVD's, so I'd have to pay extra to watch films on a now defunct video format!!! PS3 has Blu-Ray built in! PS3 has wireless internet so I connected it up to my network, it automatically updated my system software for me - I can now watch DivX movies on my PS3. Basically, this machine ticks all my boxes and Xbox360 just didn't! Also, no Ring of Death for me!

2 bottles of wine and a highlighting kit!

So Thursday was pay-day for me! Finally after 2 weeks of being totally skint I had some cash so I did some food shopping at Somerfield - got a few groceries in... and some wine of course. They've got Linderman's on offer right now so I thought I'd give it a go - a bottle of white and a bottle of red.
On Friday we opened up the red to go with our pork loin steaks and it tasted so good Lisa popped down to Somerfield to get another bottle. After opening the second bottle I asked Lisa if she was ever going to use that hair highlighting kit that she bought about a month ago. She says "D'ya know what? I was just thinking about using that!!"
I said "Well, I wanted to get the ol' clippers out on my hair this weekend. But if there's any left over highlighter can we stick in my hair to see what it looks like. If lit comes out shit we can just shave me head!"

Now I used to be a bottle blonde a couple of years ago but thought I'd stop to let my my hair rest, so this was kind of like 'for old times sake' type-thing. I only wanted to put slight highlights in it but cos my hair's short (and we were pissed) we ended up covering all my hair. So now I'm blonde again. Completely freaked me out when I woke up the next morning. I'd forgotten all about it!

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Don't feel neglected...

Dear Blog,

Please don't feel neglected. I know I haven't been around for a while but I still love you. I promise I'll make it up to you. I know it sounds like an excuse but I've been busy. And then there was a time when I was feeling ill. I got a new mobile phone and I thought I could post on you from there but it didn't seem to want to work like the old one. I promise I haven't been with other blogs or cheated on you. Sure, I've been seeing facebook, flickr and myspace but they mean nothing to me. They're more like friends. Yes, I know I've just started seeing Pownce but it's not a replacement. And besides they all link back to you. You're the original. You're the best. I promise I won't leave it this long til I see you again. I'll even give you a facelift in the next couple of weeks, how's that? You feel better? Good. Wipe away those tears, have a cup of tea and you'll soon feel a right as rain.

Steve

Friday, January 25, 2008

Classic moments

I loved playing this gig. This was last May at the bank holiday weekend. My band, Blind Voyeurs, aired the track Chapter13 for the first time and it went down really well. Was really nervous about playing it at first but I soon got into it. Here it is recently uploaded to our YouTube channel...



This is proving to be a bit of a nightmare to record unfortunately!! We'll keep working on it though - I think it HAS to be on our first album

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Celeb Blog No 1 - John Kricfalusi



The website of Ren & Stimpy artist John Kricfalusi, where he analyses cartoons and posts tips for upcoming animators. Interesting stuff, even if you lack the ambition to create scatological scribblings.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/

Friday, January 11, 2008

The 50 Greatest Arcade Cabinet Designs in Video Game History



Check this out. From After Burner to Tron, this in-depth list covers over 3 decades of arcade games and ranks them based on the artwork and overall quality of the cabinets themselves rather than the actual games. See if your favorite arcade cabinet designs made the cut.

Click me to see the top 50 | digg story

What? You mean batman wasn't REAL???



Can't believe it! Next they're gonna tell me that wrestling is fake!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Film night



Just watched Clerks. Hadn't seen it in a while but it was still a great film. We're now in bed watching Clerks II cos I haven't seen it yet. I've had it in my DVD collection for ages but I just haven't got round to watching it. I dunno how much I'll get through before I fall asleep though (not that I'm saying it's a boring film .... well I haven't watched it yet so I could be !! But I doubt it cos it's a Kevin Smith film... although there was Jersey Girl (I know, I'll just shut up and continue!))



Anyway, Me and Lisa have been watching Hellboy over the last couple of nights and have fell asleep during it. We've now spread it out into a Hellboy mini series. Still got part three to watch. Which reminds me Hellboy II is coming out soon. I read a news story on Digg about Hellboy II recently saying that they're gonna have Kung Fu in it! Not sure about that. Goodnight

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

New Cloverfield Viral Footage



Since I heard about this film last year I've been been following the secrecy of JJ Abrams latest venture called Cloverfield. For those that don't know it's basically a moster movie where the plot 'Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.' (imbd) From what I've read it's going to be filmed in a Blair Witch style using nothing but hand held cameras, which should be interesting.

Anyway, a couple of short viral films have surfaced recently which show fake newsreel clips from around the world about an incident at an oil rig. One of the films is below...



...the rest can be found HERE - but they're essentially the same thing but in German and Spanish.

Happy New Year - 8 days late!

NYE was fun - we went to Scotty & Lottie's flat to hang out with them and see the new year in. Got wasted and had a general good time. I've got pics somewhere, I'll put some up on my flickr when/if I find them.

Xmas in general was good. How was yours?

Radiohead played a NYE gig which I missed. If you missed it too it's here...