Main Contents
May 6, 2008
Mr Scruff
Sunday 4th May, Cheltenham Town Hall
Firstly I would like to thank those lovely chaps over at Tone Radio for making all this possible, without the hard work, dedication and lovely selection of facial hair of Neil James Beck and Joe “middlename” Kelly, I would never have been offered these tickets and therefore wouldnt have had such a fine evening.
Joe and Neil and whoever else is on the show that week hit the interweb based air waves every Wednesday between 7pm and 10pm with their own brand of family entertainment known as the AfterDark Show.
“The After Dark show is beautiful, wild and vivacious. A bit like a shampoo advert, but with better music! The best unsigned and ‘unheard’ bands on the radio as well as what’s on in Cheltenham. You won’t have heard most of the songs on this show guaran-damn-teed.
I dont get to listen to it anywhere near enough as it deserves (they were up for awards and everything last year!!), but heartily recommend you everyone checks it out, that way i might get more free tickets to stuff!?
Anyway, review…
So, Mr Scruff, for those who like me dont actually know much about him is a DJ hailing from Stockport, who loves tea, enjoys creating “quirky” animations, has a wide and varied;nay eclectic selection of music on offer and can easily make his sets last upto and over 6hrs. (Thank you blessed wiki)
In theory, alot of that adds up to me having a very bad time indeed. 6hrs? My legs are tired!! Stockport? Thats too far away for me not to be angry!! Eclectic? That means there arent enough guitars, drums and pretentious hair cuts for my liking!! Tea?? Dont even get me started on the TEA!! (I do like the quriky and the animated though)
So how surprsied was I to find out that i freaking loved the guy.
Mr Scruff gave us around 4hrs of the best selection of Jazz, Hip-Hop, BreakBeat and what ever else he gave us, I have ever heard. Now if you know me you would be right in pointing out that i dont usually hear very much “jazz, hip-hop breakbeat and what ever else he gave us” anyway. But in many ways that the most important thing, i dont listen to that type of thing because, in theory, its not my cup of tea. Yet this balding gent got me to stand around for over 4hrs enthralled with what was flying out of his speakers, and sometimes I even moved my body to it a little. Im not gonna say i was danincg, that would take a minor miracle happening, but i definately did a little more than just tap my feet or even wobbling my legs.
The only downer of the whole night was waiting at the bar for over HALF AN HOUR, and therefore MISSING HALF AN HOUR of Mr Scruff, while waiting for overpriced alcohol. For a venue that big, only having 4 people serve a queue that is over 6 people deep is just ridiculous. Thankfully everyone was taking it with good grace and only the subtlest and snidest forms of mockery aimed at the poor bar staff (we knew it wasnt their fault really, but who else are we gonna blame?)
So overall he was amazing, and a complete surprise to me, I was tooking forward to the event but going in with a certain degree of trepidation as i really didnt know what to expect and whether i would be walking out after about an hour of uncomfortably standing around looking confusedly forward at what in essence is a man hidden in a small box. But obviously i stayed, and as i said loved it. Plus i came away with a tea-towel with dinosaurs on it! How many gigs can you name that can offer me that?
Filed under: Mr Scruff, gig, review, tone radio |
Comments (2)
May 3, 2008
OK, I know i have left this a little late but its Comic Book Day today, so get on down to your local store and pick up a whole pile of lovely FREE comics…..and while your there buy lots of things aswell.
Heres a few recommendations…
The Walking Dead- Its a zombie story where the zombies are less important to the actually real people in the story, but dont worry its still got lots of bllod and stuff.
Captain America- Yes Cap’ was killed at the end of civil war, but his books proudly live on, and are as strong, if not stronger, than ever.
The Ultimates (Vol 1+2)- The re-imagining of the classic avengers in the Ultimate universe, an incredible selection of stories, but thankfully you dont have to wait months for each issue as they are all now available in trade format.
Squee/JTHM/anything by Jhonen Vasquez- This guy created Invader Zim! If thats not enough of a reason to buy his books, watch more Zim until you change your mind!
Ok, so those are a random bunch of my books, will they be right for you? I have no idea….im not entirely sure who you are?? All i can say is go, have a look and pick something that takes your fancy, thats how i started, pick a random book and go from there.
P.S.
If in Cheltenham please frequent this fine establishment…
http://www.proudlion.co.uk/
Filed under: Uncategorized |
Comments (1)
May 2, 2008
The last few days have taken a heavy toll on my bank balance; I foolishly gave in to the almighty N and bought a copy of WiiFit, plus the super spangly Special Edition of GTAIV eventually arrived at my door.
WiiFit
In a very basic sort of way WiiFit is like brain training but for your body. Using the incredibly chunky piece of kit that is the balance board you embark on a number of activities that aim to try and improve your health and general well being, most activities base all this on you center of gravity and how well you can control it under certain conditions. And so far it is a whole lot of fun, Alice and I have shared more than a few chuckles watching each other waggle away as we try and ski jump, hula hoop or dance ourway fit. Its here where WiiFit is at its best, in what are essentially mini games.
The other main part of WiiFit are the aerobic exercises and the yoga, and this is where my main problem lies, while the inclusions of these two are definately a step in the right direction of making this a true keep fit package, a few important factors need to be taken into account. Firstly you will never be able to properly mimic this kind of thing from pictures or videos, and this easily take away any benefit of doing them, or in an extreme scenario lead to injury. My other concern is a lack of direction you get when approaching these two, when you try either options you are simply greeted with a wall of different types of excersies, what would have really helped would be a system of making a more personalised work out, guding you through what you want to achieve and how to do it.
Ignoring those faults though, WiiFit is a whole lot of fun, add a proper multiplayer to it and you would be on to an even bigger win, im guessing we will have to wait for the Rabbids to be involved before we get that…..
GTA IV
This one is simple, its freakin’ awesome, but really what else did you expect. A steady improvement from previous iterations with better graphics, missions, characters, car handling, combat…well everything? As usual its as much an joy to just drive around causing chaos as it is following anything that you should be doing, and that makes me even more glad i have the whole week of to dedicate time to it, i have played 20hrs, and am only abou a quarter of the way through…..i get distrated very easily.
Filed under: GTA, WiiFit, games |
Comments (0)
April 25, 2008
Everyone in the house is playing GTA IV….
I couldnt purchase a copy of Wii Fit after work….
Im working all weekend….
My job is annoying me….
These are all reasons im a little bit miffed at the moment. I do however have all next week off, that is (as DDP used to say) A GOOD THING (cheesy smile).
Filed under: games, random |
Comments (9)
April 19, 2008
It is now nearly 5 o’clock in the morning, I feel oh so very ill and I cant sleep. This is of course not good, whats even worse is i have to be up for work in around 3 hrs. So what better thing to do than discuss this evening Halo based adventures.
To celebrate the anniversary of the WeeMans birth, the WeeMan himself decided to declare a Halo evening, and of course this one could not have been timed better what with the new maps only coming out 3 days ago,and also a few new game type have been developed so the basic theme of the evening was “all things new”.
Ram Raid was the first new game type to be thrust into the lime light, and here the object was simple. Run people over to win. Set on the Grifball court in foundry, the only way to score points is to jump aboard one of the mongeese or warthogs, and attempt to run someone down. Simple in theory, but when you consider the fact that ten other people are all trying to do the same things, and you have very little room to do it…it gets a little tricker, and blessed chaos ensues. Two versions of this were attempted, both team and individual varaitations, and while i loved the single player version, the team game left me feeling a little cold, but i suppose walking away with a personal score of minus two might have left a sour taste in my mouth.
The other new game type was developed by original Green Team™ member, Sir Phillip, and i shall call it War. The premise here was also simple, kill the other guys by making them die. The interesting twist here though was on his specially created version of Sandtrap Phil made one team spawn with a whole host of banshees, where as the other team is laden with rockets and other ground based vehicles. The first round was carnage, with my merry band of death machines finding themselves about 25-2 down in the first 30 seconds, when we did all finally get the hang of it however, things evened themselves out and a damn fine little game type emerged with both teams trying to control the map with the alloted mode of transport.
The main event of the evening was undoubtedly the new maps, not that all them were stricitly speaking new of course.
Blackout is a straight re-make of the Halo 2 classic, and personal favourite of mine, Lockout. There isnt much to say about this one other than it is pretty much unchanged except for a new skin and a couple of subtle changes to some of the jumps. So it plays just as well as it used to.
Ghost Town is the only new map of the bunch, and while we may not have given it the time it deserves i can see it being a damn fine map. It bares a certain similarity to Turf, again from Halo 2, which again makes me very happy as that was another one that i loved to play on. Next time i may have to force everyone to play the odd game of territories…
The final map was far and away the most succesful, Avalanche. This little beauty is a re-imagination of a map that i hadnt had the pleasure of playing before, but comes highly recommended by all; Sidewinder from the original Halo. While a couple of slayer matches were enjoyable the best games of the night where the epic battles of assault where i found out it is a whole lot of fun firing rockets at a warthog as they fly through the air.
Filed under: halo |
Comments (7)
April 10, 2008
As you may know, last week the toyshop i work for, ToyZone, went to administration….*sad face*
This would be bad enough, but when you take into account all the “Crazy” that has been going on at the aforementioned toy based retail establishment over the last few months, that just added to my anger rage.
Last Friday added an extra twist in this little tale of confusion, we recieved a fax saying we had been taken over by a company called “Magsons” who seem to be a toy and stationery distributer. This means I still have a job, and in theory this can only be a good thing….but only time will tell.
Filed under: work |
Comments (19)
April 10, 2008
Its not everyday you can say that you get in from work and play a couple of new Gamecube games, afterall its been “dead” for a while now; since the last Zelda game in fact, but today I achieved this amazing feat…….in a way.
I got Ikaruga from the XBLA (I first played it on the NGC), and Manny very kindly let me sample Mario Kart Wii a full 2 days before official release (I used my WaveBird, hence the tenuous Gamcube intro). My Gamecubian heritage is not the only thing these games have in common however, both are ridiculously frustrating, but in very different ways……
Ikaruga for those who dont know is a vertical scrolling shooter, originally released in the arcade by Sega, eventually making the transition to the Dreamcast and NGC. What sets this apart from its other shmup bretheren is its use of “polarity” At any time during the game you can change your ships polarity, switching your ship between black and white, which means you ship is more powerful against opponents of the opposite colour but also succeptable to their attacks.
Now, why is this game a tad frustrating, well it because of its INSANE!! difficulty level. It actually scares me a little, but the important thing is I have no real problem with it in terms of gameplay. Its hard yes, but its a level of difficulty thats makes you want to go back for more trying to best your score and maybe get only 13 gatrillion points away from the highest score rather than 14 gatrillion.
Now to Mario Kart, a game that is equally frustrating, but in oh such a different way.. Its the kind of frustration that makes you want to throw what ever controller configuration your using square at whatever TV your watching, whether its your rather old 28″ CRT or the ridiculously large HDTV that sits in your house mates room but a few feet away that makes you cry with joy everytime you look at its sweet beauty. Everytime you get into a race against either the computer of real life human type opponents you know you will be switching places with them every 2 seconds flitting from 1st to 11th in the blink of an eye, thanks of course to all the ridiculous power ups that keep flying around.
But theres another thing these two games have in common, i just cant stop playing Mario Kart either, everything its doing to me should make me hate it and want to stare meanly at its childen as they walk to school unaware of whats its family have done to me (odd analagy i know), but i just cant. Its Mario Kart and i just cant hate it.
Filed under: games |
Comments (6)
April 3, 2008
So WrestleMania has been and gone and surprisingly it was a pretty good PPV all round, not amazing by any stretch, but it did have enough stand out moments to make it memorable.
The Good.
Undertaker Def. Edge
So in a shocking turn of events Undertaker beat Edge to extend his undefeated steak to 16 matches at ‘Mania, the most surprising part of this tussle though was it was a rather good match. Sure there were one or two missed spots, but Edge came away from this really strong, alomost giving the most subtle and vaguest of hints of the idea that he might stand a slight chance of maybe sneaking a victory…possibly. Of course he didnt actually achive this and ‘Taker now has his hands on his 6th World Title.
Randy Orton def. John Cena, and HHH to retain his title.
Now this was actually a suprise that had me marking out quite a bit, Orton won what one hell of a decent triple threat match, after giving HHH a concussion kick and taking advantage of a recently Pedigreed Cena. They started off at break neck speed and carried that on throughout it relatively short running time, keeping it short and very very sweet. Im going to say again how much of a surprise it was for Orton to get the clean victory, maybe the BigWigs at WWE are actually trying to plan for the future for once?
Floyd Mayweather def. Big Show
Im surprising my self by putting this match in the good section, but i think this one is all relative. Put any “normal” wrestler in Mayweathers place and i would have felt a lot worse about the outcome, but as it is he is not a Pro-Wrestler and yet he faired pretty well.I went into it expecting a horrendous mis-match of a show down, but came away pleasantly surprised. It took one hell of a beating with a steel chair and brass knuckles to keep the Big Show down, and he didnt loose any of his momentum because of it.
The Bad
ECW Title
Kane won a lackluster Battle Royale before the main show and then went on to squash Chavo in about 7 seconds with a single chokeslam to win his first ECW title.
Giving Kane the title, thats all well and good. He deserves a higher spot on the card, but the manner in which they gave it to him total demeans the very concept of ECW at the moment (as if it could get any worse), Chavo got beaten oh so easily and yet he has got clean victories over a ton of the ECW superstars…it just makes them all look weak.
JBL def. Final
The brawl i was really hoping for from these guys never really emmerged, sure we had a ton of trashcans involved, but it seemed to be missing that important spark to take it too the next level. Not even a ton of incredibly stiff shots, JBL launching a trashcan at a midget (comedy gold) or a suicide dive from a nigh on 50yr year (old resulting in a trash can lid to the face) coudl quite lift this one up to the good pile.
(If im fair this one would probably fall in a “the Middling” type pile, but as i dont have one, its earned its spot her)
Bunnymania
Just a waste of time, no one cared and it was a complete waste of the talent, the only saving grace was that the lights went out half way through so we didnt actually have to watch some of it.
Also Snoopy the Dogg destroying Santino, that was rather good.
The Rather Awesome
CM Punk wins MITB
Oh how we all love a decent ladder match, riddled with ridiculous spots and a ton of broken superstars, this one did not disappoint. Backcracker from the ladder, moonsault with a ladder, Shelton Benjamin taking one of the sickest bumps i have in a while, Carlito’s reaction to Shelton Benjamin taking one of the sickest bumps i have seen in a while, Shelton Benjamin in general, a brief ladder joust and a whole lot more insane violence.
But the single best bit? CM Punk grabbing the briefcase after a tussle with Jericho. I know this was my prediction, but that didnt stop me being oh so very surprised when it happened. If this leads to the era of the straight edged superstar, idont think ill stop smiling.
Shawn Michaels def. Ric Flair
Going into this match, i was sure of two things; Flair would loose, and this match would not life up to the hype. I dont think i have ever been so happy to only get it half right.
Flair of course lost, but the story the match told, and of course how it told it was amazing. Flair had his best in ring performance in years, Shawn was nearly killing himself for the cause (that table spot should have punctured his lungs) and i was generally cut up at the end. Seeing Shawn mouth “Im sorry, I love you” before hitting the final superkick nearly had be bawling like a school girl, but in the end Flair got the send of he deserved and then some.
So that was WM24, and despite going in to in slightly underwhelmed, i left rather happy and, of course, doing my Randy Orton impression. I wonder how long it is before that starts to annoy people?
Filed under: wrestling |
Comments (0)
April 2, 2008
I cant sleep so here are a selection of random facts:
- I need to look for another new job
- I like the films of John Cusack
- I wish Kate Nash would stop coming up in party shuffle (unless its Mariella)
- Always wear odd socks
- I dont like it when you look at me like that so stop it
- I said stop it!
- I am never more than 20ft away from a rat aparently
- I might wear a spangly bracelet with mapoo on it at work tomorrow
- I like to read on the toilet
- I dont forgive you*
- I was surprised that Ric Flair pulled off an amazing last match
- Seem to be willing to buy anything with the words HALO3 written on it
- I am annoyed that i never got to dress up as Geoffrey
- I did however get to dress as Willy
- I once had a “disagreement” with Ron Attkinson
- If you cut me i bleed, and that is not nice, why would you cut me?
- Im currently enjoying the puzzley fun of Proffessor Layton on my DS
- The above is giving me another reason not to play Super Mario Sunshine
- Im slightly more angry than i am usually at the moment (im also too warm)
- In the last week i have watched roughly one million episodes of Scrubs
- I dont like tomato, so dont give me any
- I do like Maoam, so you may give me many of those
- I am scared of Praying Mantis’, and its all The Real Ghostbusters fault
- I like to use the terms “vicariously” and “By Proxy”
- I dont know what the point of any of this is
- I’m still not sleepy
*……..?
Filed under: random |
Comments (0)
April 1, 2008
April 1st, April Fools day. A day of larking about and comedy prankey from everyone the world over.
Also a day to find out that the company you work for, Toy Zone, and the national buying group that the are directly linked too, Youngsters, are going into administration. Fuck!
Please bare in mind that we were only taken over by this new company on March 6th, after Toywizz closing down in Cheltenham….to say im a little miffed is an understatement.
Filed under: work |
Comments (4)