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

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!

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

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

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/

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!

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

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...

Rascal cat

Caught in the act!!

Radiohead have made a packet out of me!

OK, so In Rainbows is still my most listened to album this year. I think they must've put some sorta weird sub-conscious hypnotism interweaved into this album as it's always in my mind. It was starting to make me feel bad that I'd only played a quid for the download as I was definitely getting WAY more than my value for money.

But then they announced the tour... well I had to go to that. So I ordered 2 tickets for me and Lisa - that cost near £100 after order fees etc.

...and then they announced that the diskbox was about to be discontinued and once the last of them have shipped out of the warehouse that was it: no more re-pressings or re-releases. So, knowing the potential rarity value of it I HAD to buy one of those too. So that's another £40 .... except I accidently bought 2 of them cos I didn't check my basket after my browser crashed during check out!...so that's actually £80 I'd spent!!!! Solution? Ebay!

My conclusion to this is that although a lot of people were thinking 'wow, Radiohead are gonna lose out of lots of money cos everyone's bought the download for free!' it turns out that if I were an average Radiohead fan then there will be millions more like me who would either have bought a ticket, a diskbox, or both! And Radiohead are still the world's biggest unsigned band so all the money goes to them, not the record company! I'd say that they've made a fuckin' mint!!!

Recording

Lee popped round to our flat on Sunday to do some recording. He needed to record his parts for Christening, Pale Blue Dot and we had a stab at the vocals for Ghost Written - but we'd left our popscreen at Andy's so we had to do a make-shift one out of a wire coat hanger and a t-shirt. Wasn't too happy with the recording though - Lee's voice was a bit shakey and the popscreen made his sound a bit muffled. We'll try it again another time. Other than that the other recordings were successfull and we had a laugh to boot!

Bill Bailey

Me and Lisa went to see Bill Bailey at the BIC on Saturday. It was amazing. I'd completely forgot that we'd bought tickets until about 2 weeks ago. We ordered the tickets in May after we saw him on the Jonathon Ross show and he was talking about his up-coming tour.

The German Market is in town again for Christmas. We had a steak burger and 2 glasses of Glühwein before we went to the concert. Glühwein is mulled wine and is great when you mix it with a pint of strong German lager - get's ya pissed quicker!

I'll upload a clip of Bill Bailey later on.

Radiohead - Videotape (mojib remix)

Looks like someone's already remixed a track from Radiohead's latest album, In Rainbows. It's the last track on the album, Videotape, and it features a sample from DJ Shadow. I quite like it but it has to be said that it's not so much a remix as a mash-up. The original track, due to it's minimalistic nature, is probably one of the easiest to remix. Coulda done it myself!! But you have to give him credit for getting there first.

Check out mojib.net for other remixes including Ian Brown and The Go! Team

Videotape (Mojib Remix)

24: The Unaired 1994 Pilot

Just seen this on digg.com and had to show it to you. This is probably the first time the technobabble on 24 is accurate!! Enjoy.

Since Fox will not be airing a new season of "24" due to the writers' strike, they plan to air this version, originally filmed in 1994.

digg story

Lots of exciting stuff...

There's a lot of stuff I'm excited about at the moment. Just stuff that's either coming up or stuff that's just happened. Obviously my main excited thing was moving in with Lisa. The rest are as follows...

Star Trek XI
They're currently in pre-production stages of the new Star Trek movie. In case you didn't know, this movie goes back BEFORE the ORIGINAL Star Trek and will likely covers things like Spock and Kirk at the Space Academy. Recently they've done a casting call for extras. Would love to be in America right now!!
Click here for more Extras info

iPhone
I'm sure that most of you would've heard about the iPhone and that it's just come out over here in the UK. I want one sooo bad - can't wait for January 19th.. that's when I can upgrade my phone!

Super Mario Galaxy
Coming out on the 19th!! Check this clip...

...say no more.

Wanted trailer
Next up, a trailer has been going round on the internet for a film called Wanted. It stars James McAvoy (from Channel 4's Shameless), Angelina Jolie (in over-the-top clack eye make-up!), Morgan Freeman and Terence Stamp. The trailer looks good... a bit Matrix-esque but I've got a feeling it's gonna be a bit tame. Hope not. There's some amzing thought out visuals such as climbing up and falling train carriage and the bit where Jolie pulls a skid in that red car and bumps McAvoy's character into the car. It's also another in a long line of comicbook-to-screen adaptions that seem to be the in thing at the moment.


Blade Runner Final Cut
Ridley Scott wanted to re-shoot a few scene's for his classic film Blade Runner. I'm sure everyone's heard about this film so I'll skip the synopsis. Basically, in view of all the latest High Def TVs being the way forward and that older films are being converted to HDDVD and BluRay, Ridley became increasingly aware of some scenes that are 'passable' on VHS but become blindingly obvious on High-Def ultra realism... namely the scene with the stripper replicant crashing through shop glass. It was obviously a stuntman in a bad wig! There are also some originally unused footage that has been restored. It should be available to buy soon and I can't wait to see one of my favourite films of all time in the way it was originally intended.

Aliens vs Predator - Requiem
A trailer has been out for a while on this one - but recently a whole 3 minutes of one of the key scene's has been released just in time for Halloween. You can see them HERE. They are pretty graphic and with strong language so a short age verification will need to be done. Fingers crossed it will be a million times better that the first Aliens vs Predator mess of a film.


I've also been getting into podcasts recently. Namely Totally Rad Show, Smodcast and Web Drifter. The Totally Rad Show podcast is a video podcast featuring Diggnation's Alex Albrecht and is basically about films, video games and comics. Smodcast is an audio podcast with Kevin Smith and some friends. It's totally addictive listening. Web Drifter is kinda like a Louis Theroux type video podcast in that the shows host, Martin Sargent, will be traveling across America taking you behind some of the most fascinating, shocking, and groundbreaking sites on Internet.

No posts for a week...

Yep, I've sent no posts for a week! So what the hell's been happening since my last nerdy tech post?!? Well, it's a mixture of 'not a lot' and 'too much to mention'. My main thing has been preparing for moving out of mine and Scott's flat to move into Lisa's flat. Lottie will be taking my place.

Friday 2nd Nov, 2007
Went to work - it sucked. Scott and Lottie were off to London to see Carter USM supported by Sultans of Ping. Lisa came round to help me pack some stuff. We also managed to get wasted and stay up til 4am!! Not good as I've got a gig the next day!!

Saturday 3rd Nov, 2007
This was the day of the all-dayer at The Gander (oh and Rob's birthday!).



For those that don't know (shame on you) this was a day to celebrate the re-opening of The Gander as a premium local venue for unsigned bands, and to give Imogen and Chris a good send off as they're moving to Japan. Their departure will essentially be removing a leg from the Betika and Dutch Husband table. Luckily Betika have found some fitting 2 by 4 to prop up the table while they're away. Dutch, on the other hand will attempt to stand up as a three legged table. What the fuck am I talking about!??! I dunno... I think I've lost it.

Anyway, we got there at about 2ish to set up. I was starving and a bit shaky on my legs after only getting abut 4 hours kip and being hungover like a bastard. I got myself a Subway and bottle of water. We did sound check with Dave Purse on drums - Scott was still on his way back from London and apparently there were railworks on the track so his train was delayed. After all sounded good I got my frist drink of the day and enjoyed the first two bands.

I'd seen Slate Caverns before. To the untrained ear it sounds like he's making shit up on the spot. But I've seen him several times before and I know that what he's playing is pre-planned, written and sharper than a surgeon's blade. He's also the only act I've ever seen use his foot to play guitar, his knee to control a wah-wah and both hands controlling two separate pedels simultaneously. Amazing! If I ever write a film, I want a Slate Caverns "tune" in the soundtrack.

Creepythinguy was great too. Reminded me of a Graham Coxon solo acoustic gig - if he ever did solo acoustic gigs that is. It was interesting to see him using a nylon stringed classical guitar though.

We were up next. The crowd was getting big by the time we got on stage. I thought we played like shit. My bass was slightly out of tune near the beginning, even though I'd tunes up. Both the guitar amps were WAYYY too loud and I fucked up loads on the keys during Pale Blue Dot. There were more but can't remember them. Anyway, we played and entertained. And what did me in the most was that people were coming up to us and say we were awesome. One comment was "You guys should be fuckin' headlining Glastonbury, or sommat!" I'm like, "Glad you liked it!" But I wasn't gonna start putting ourselves down. If he enjoyed it then that's cool. My job was done. I just took it.



We had to get all our stuff off stage and get it home before we could relax and enjoy the rest of the day. I've played at an all-dayer before and when it came to taking my stuff home at the end of the night I was drunk and left half of my shit there never to see it again so I wasn't gonna make the same mistake twice. We dropped our stuff at James' and Emma gave us a lift back.

By the time I got back Dead!Dead!Dead! were on stage - man, I didn't think we were gone that long! But that's ok, cos I love D!x3. Such a good band. They were giving out free CD's too - which I wish we'd done. Actually, that reminds me. I spent three hours the previous night making an "Album Preview/Exclusive Demos" Blind Voyeurs CD for the raffle and I don't remember hearing it being mentioned. I think Tone might've forgot to put it in with the rest of the prizes. Oh well.

As the night went on my memory of what went on get's hazy - not that I felt drunk at the time. I remember getting my nursery rhymes mixed up with Simone at one stage and Nikki was being my clapping buddy (we were both holding drinks so we used our spare hands to clap - she was my left hand, I was her right hand)

Potts was on a mission to find the most disgusting combination for a drink - and came up with Tequila & tobasco shots! He made me his guinea pig and force fed me the prototype (the git told me it was a normal tequila) and although it was really hot it was bearable. It ended up being like an endurance test as we were challenging each other and other people to down one, too - I think I had 3 or 4 of them!!!!!



Me, Summa, Kai, Potts, Mark and JB went to iBar after for more drinks. Were were in there for a couple. Kai didn't believe me that the owner of iBar wrote the original Worms game. I had to call Andy over to prove to him that he did. Even then Kai said "I dunno.. I think you set that up!" After a drink too many it was time for us to all head home. I think I completely passed out as soon as I hit the pillow.

Sunday 4th Nov, 2007
This was a null-day. Too hungover to do anything!!!!!!!!!!! Stayed in bed - even that was an effort!

This week so far
Lottie and Scotty went to Wales on Monday for a dirty week in a log cabin with hot-tub and jacuzzi. Which was good for me cos that meant they were out of the way for me and Lisa to start doing some proper packing and shifting. My bedroom is all echoey now - all that's left in there is a matress and a check of drawers - both of which are to go to the tip.

And that concludes the summary of my week!