Despite what I said in my last post, I’ve decided to switch to Tumblr – it certainly suits my needs more than WordPress does.
So as from today, this blog will no longer be updated – please point your browsers towards http://www.mattyboosh.co.uk
-M. x
It’s official, I’ve finally registered mattyboosh.co.uk – so it’s mine now, all mine – that name is officially mine, I just wish Twitter would delete the inactive mattyboosh account so I could set everything how it should be!
That aside, over the coming days, I’m going to be revamping the whole look of this blog, because it looks…erm…a bit shitty. So look out for that.
Anyway, the weekend is here – hope you all have a good one.
-M. x
Last Saturday marked the return of the football season and it couldn’t have come quickly enough. To say that the World Cup was a disappointment would be an understatement, not just from an England fan’s perspective, but as a football fan – the whole World Cup was all a little bit meh.
But, now the domestic league football season has begun and I’m glad to have it back. As a Burnley fan, last season wasn’t the best in what was supposed to be a fun adventure in our first ever appearance in the Premier League. It started off superbly with wins over Manchester United and Everton, but come December, it all went horribly wrong. We were getting hammered, our manager walked out on us and it all went a bit tits up! That is all in the past now though and here we are, back in the Championship and hopefully a successful season that will end up in promotion back to the Premier League – the TV and newspaper pundits certainly seem to think so, but as a Burnley fan, I shall remain sceptical until around April!
Our first game of the season was against Forest, another supposed favourites for promotion – but for me, matchday started a few hours before kick-off, in my favourite pub and arguably the best pub in Burnley, ‘The Bridge Bier Huis’. It had been a while since I’d ventured in there and it was great to see the same old faces and many new ones, all eagerly anticipating the match and all playing down Burnley’s chances. As ever, there were a whole plethora of ales to choose from (if you’re not aware of The Bridge, it has a huge menu just for it’s bottled beer!) – my personal favourite of the day was a beer simply named ‘Summer Ale’ which was made with Elderflower. I have no idea which brewery crafted it, but whoever it was, well done and top marks!
After almost 3 hours of sampling various ales, we made our way to Turf Moor (Burnley FC’s stadium) and got caught in a rather unwelcomed downpour. But this didn’t dampen our spirits – after all, this was a matchday, spirits are never dampened until 4.45pm hehe. Once I got to my usual seat (of the past 7 seasons), it was nice to take in the atmosphere and anticipation that has been sorely missed since our final day victory over Spurs last season, back in May.
I won’t bore you with a match report, but I’ll give you a quick summary. It was quite a scrappy game in which we certainly didn’t play to anywhere near to our full potential, but we did win 1-0 with the only goal of the game coming on the stroke of half-time from one of our new signings, ‘Big’ Chris Iwelumo. It was nice to get the first game of the season out of the way and of course, it was great to get a win. Now we look forward to Ipswich Town, away from home next Saturday and fingers crossed, another three points.
I’ll finish off by wishing every football fan a happy season – unless you’re one of the 23 other teams in the Championship, then I hope it’s very unhappy when you play us.
In short…
It’s good to be back!
Well, it’s finally happened – after four glorious years of video gaming marital bliss, my XBox 360 has crapped out on me.
While playing on Split/Second and leading an epic race, my picture suddenly went weird…like, really weird. It was just a mess. I couldn’t even claim it to be a psychedelic dreamscape across my screen. Just a messed up, wibbly wobbly mess.
So I rebooted the machine and headed back to the dashboard, but unfortunately I was greeted with this…
Immediate panic, distress and pain. I even shed a little tear, but I decided to man up and try an alternative connection, clutching to the hope that it was my HDMI cable that had fucked up and not the machine.
With my fingers tightly crossed I rebooted the machine once more only for the situation to go even worse. The XBox had now completely given up on It’s will to live…
So that’s that then – I am going to have to somehow get £200 together and purchase a the new XBox 360 Slim. If I had the spare cash, It wouldn’t be a problem, but I don’t, so It Is! Though I am starting to believe that my XBox crapping out on me is all part of some weird X(box)-Files type conspiracy thingy. A cunning ploy by Microsoft to annihilate and destroy all old 360′s so that people go out and buy the new sexy bitch slim 360.
So after a quick word with my cousin (who works for Curry’s) he is going to get me one of the new 360′s with his staff discount for £175 which includes three free games – so that’s pretty cool. In the meantime though, he’s going to lend me his “old” Modern Warfare 2 Elite till I buy the new one.
That’s about it really.
RIP XBox 360 2006-2010 – farewell old friend…
Hey Hey,
It’s been over a month since I’ve posted anything on my blog, so I thought it was high time I’d let you know what’s been going on.
You may very well be aware that i’ve started writing for a relatively new website called NXTGamer and so far, things are going pretty well. I had thought for many years about writing in some capacity about video games, but never actually bothered due to the fact that I never thought that anyone would ever bother reading a personal blog on the subject. The other option was to perhaps write for an already established website, but I didn’t have any idea on how to go about that. Then I met Mike Bell, owner of NXTGamer who invited me to join the site and write for them. I duly obliged and in just a couple of months, I’ve become increasingly interested in the journalistic side of video gaming.
Another aspect of getting involved with NXTGamer that is extremely exciting is the places it’s taking me to. On Tuesday July 27th, I’m heading down to London for a Nintendo event, where I’ll be able to try out the new (not out till 2011) Nintendo 3DS and also sample some of the forthcoming Wii releases. From what we gather, this is quite an exclusive event – so I’ll have to get my schmoozing head on for that. Other things that are lined up is a trip to Travellers Tales Studios (developers of the LEGO series of games), to have a look around, have a chat with some of the designers and whatever else. Then in October, it’s the big one! The Eurogamer Expo – 3 days in London, playing the newest video games and chatting to some industry folk. I went last year to the Leeds event, but this time round I’m going as ‘press’ and to the bigger and better London version (there is no Leeds event this year), so I’m no doubt going to meet plenty of people who can offer a real insight into the video game industry. Again, my best schmoozing head will be on – in fact, I’m not ashamed to say that there might be some full-on arse licking going on!
Another thing that’s potentially happening for me is that I’ve applied to become a game/music/gig reviewer for CALM magazine (Campaign Against Living Miserably) – this would be a voluntary position of course, due to them being a charity – but not only will it give me a sense of doing something worthwhile but it may also benefit me, if journalism of this sort is a career path I’d like to take. Plus I’ve applied to do a Foundation Degree course with UCLan in Media & Journalism, which I’d start in September.
So, in a nutshell, 2010 has been a rollercoaster so far. It started off fantastic, then went downhill and then levelled off – now it seems as though I’m on the up again and I honestly feel as though I’m going to break through the clouds.
The only thing that’s not such a good feeling, is the fact that I’m going on this upwards journey alone when I’d much prefer someone to be by my side, but that’s not for me to make happen…
As Hunter S. Thompson once said: “Buy the ticket, take the ride”
Take care
-M. x
The 14th of June has been and gone – for 2 days now, i’ve been listening to the new album by The Chemical Brothers entitled ‘Further’, and wow, what a stunning release it is…
For the last few years, ‘The Chems’ have released albums that were more geared for commercial chart success, while they did create some excellent tracks such as ‘Star Guitar’, ‘Galvanize’ and ‘It Began in Afrika’, this mainstream sound slightly alienated the fans of the old style sound that they used to produce.
I’m happy to say that the punchy and raw electronic sound of old is back and back in style!
Gone are the previous reliance of guests vocalists, which often felt as though the tracks had been built around the vocal, thus making them feel lifeless and weak. The only additional vocals to feature on the new album is that of American singer-songwriter, Stephanie Dosen, who appears on the first track titled ‘Snow’. Though Dosen’s dulcet tones have more of a sampled feel to them which works extremely well.
‘Further’ is more in the vein of the duo’s Electronic Battle Weapon tracks, where they would road test still-evolving tracks in their DJ sets, and with Further they’ve turned eight of these into a colossal throbbing whole, accompanied by a DVD put together by their long-time visual collaborators Adam Smith and Marcus Lyall. Adam himself has been building up a directing sideline, helming a couple of episodes in the current Dr Who series, which to anyone who’s ever witnessed the Chems’ live spectacle makes perfect sense.
Highlights wise, ‘Escape Velocity’ is one of those hands-in-the-air tracks that builds and builds to unleash air punching euphoria for almost 12 minutes! It will certainly be a smash in the clubs across the UK, Europe and beyond.
‘Horse Power’ plays like a track that you’d expect to hear at some post-apocalyptic rave while your bloodstream fills up with class-A chemicals. Never have noises of horses been perfectly used to accompany a song…well, not since ‘Crazy Horses’ by The Osmonds >_<
The ‘My Bloody Valentine’ inspired – ‘Swoon’ is a very floaty and psychedelic journey that is bound to be part of many soundtracks to the summer. This was the first single release from back in early May.
‘K+B+D’ spills out gorgeously into a propulsive nod-fest and foot-tapper and album closer ‘Wonders of the Deep’ is an atmospheric spacey track that glows from start to a glorious star-gazing finale.
With ‘Further’, The Chemical Brothers show no signs of slowing or ageing, and the absence of any star collaborators matters not one bit. It’s better to continuously explode than fade away, or something.
Welcome back, the classic sound of The Chemical Brothers – we’ve missed you…
Tracklisting
14th June, 2010 – that is the release date for the new album by ‘The Chemical Brothers’ entitled ‘Further’.
To say i’m excited about the album would be a understatement. As a long term fan of ‘The Chems’ – the new material, reported to be more psychedelic and melodic, is something that makes me want to get my hands on it ASAP.
If the first single, ‘Swoon’, is anything to go by, ‘The Chems’ really could have a summer smash-hit on the cards.
mmmm…psychedelic, floaty goodness.
-M.
This post was originally intended to be all about my most favourite XBox 360 game (following a conversation on XBox LIVE with @Mikestoke) – but when the question was posed to me, I really struggled to answer. Was this due to there being far too much to choose from, or was it simply the fact that I don’t really have a favourite.
So this got me thinking about if I actually enjoy playing computer/video games as much as I did as a youngster? Are modern video games not as enticing as their 80′s and 90′s counterparts?
From these thoughts, the blog idea changed and it turned into what games i’ve enjoyed the most during my 25 years of playing.
As ever, the best place to start is at the beginning…
Wow, the Commodore 64 (C64) – was and still is, in my opinion, the machine that revolutionised the home computing and gaming scene. Much more powerful than the IBM based PC’s from Apple and Atari available at that time with it’s “mighty” 64k of memory and 1MHz processor.
I can still remember my parents bringing it home from Makro and being mesmerized by this plastic box of tricks. I wasn’t sure what it did, being only 5 years old, but I knew it was something magical. I’ve asked my Dad how much it cost and he seems to recall it being somewhere around the £250 mark and in 1984, that was a hell of a lot of money.
The first thing I saw once the RF lead was connected to the TV and the C64 powered up for the first time, was the almost blinding, bright blue, two-tone screen. It had a bit information at the top which I didn’t understand, but the part I did understand was ‘READY’ – and that’s what I was, ready to start my love for computers and video games…
Even though it’s almost 25 years ago, I can still remember the first game we loaded up and of course, the first game I ever played – it was called ’3D-Glooper’. It was a maze game, which involved trying to find your way out with being caught by this weird brown beast aptly named “Glooper”. The game was basically Pac-Man in 3D.
Once I had played this game, without having any real idea what to do, I was completely hooked. The other games that came bundled with the machine were Forest Land, Stix, Mummy Maze and The Mask of the Sun.
The stand out games for me, over the next few years (1984-1991) were: 
No doubt, many of the “PlayStation generation” will look at those screens and laugh at how bad they look – but to me, they symbolise the beginning of my video game adventure. I agree, many of those games would be difficult to play today, but there are the odd few which I can honestly say, if I loaded them up right now, i’d enjoy them just as much as I did back in the day.
But, as I got older and a few of my friends where using Commodore Amiga or (the lucky one’s) Sega Mega Drive – I wanted to play more up to date games, with better graphics and sound. After wearing down my parents with endless “can I have for my birthday” requests of a new machine, they agreed to get me something new for Christmas.
I was given the choice; Commodore Amiga, Sega Mega Drive or the new kid on the block, SNES. After weeks of deliberation I made my decision…
It was Xmas ’92 and I already knew what I was getting, a brand spanking new SNES. It was time for my old but wonderful C64 to step aside and let the grey machine from Japan takeover with its Italian plumbing brothers.
The machine came with a copy of Super Mario World, which as many of you all know was an excellent step up to the 16-bit world for Mario & friends – I put massive amounts of hours into this game and if my memory serves me correctly, it took me well over a year to complete. It’s a shame that modern games don’t last as long!
I loved my SNES and collected so many games in my 5 years of playing on it; Super Mario Kart, F-Zero, Pilotwings, Street Fighter II Turbo, Sim City, FIFA Soccer, Super R-Type and ISS Pro, to name but a few.
Around 1993, video rental stores had started to rent games as well as movies which allowed you me to play many more new games, often on a weekly basis as opposed to perhaps 2-3 games a year. That was the only downside to SNES games, the fact that they were so damn expensive when compared to Sega Mega Drive games (Street Fighter II Turbo was £60!)
(Yes, £60 for this – and we thought prices of games today were expensive!)
I really enjoyed my SNES and enjoyed the arguments with my SEGA Mega Drive owning friends about which was the better console, which had best games and best graphics (remind you of anything? hehe) – though back in those days, I often swapped consoles for a week with friends, which gave me a little variety, but there’s only so many times you can play a game with a bloody Blue Hedgehog collecting gold rings!
Around 1995 though, my love for video games had gone a little stale, I was playing on my SNES less and less – I was out in the park playing football, plus i’d discovered girls and alcohol, so video games took a back seat for a while.
I was leaving school and going to college in ’95 and suddenly had a huge burst of maturity (as you do at 16) – which made me consider the SNES to be a little too childish, so it was time to get rid.
I still wanted a console even though I wasn’t playing as much as I used to and as anyone who was buying a new console in ’95 will know, there was only one thing on everybody’s lips and yet again, it was coming from Japan, ready to conquer the world…
To be continued…
I meant to post this a number of days ago, but I couldn’t decide on which draft to use.
So, i’ve decided to keep it simple.
Many of us (who didn’t vote Tory) all realise that David Cameron becoming Prime Minister is a complete and utter disaster for the UK – it’s bad enough that anyone who is deemed working class is going to get screwed, but we’re now living in a country that is being run by the leader of a political party that is homophobic and racist.
So, that’s it really, we’re completely fucked, but instead of ranting and raving about it, here is something irrelevant.
Batman and Elephant yesterday.
Have yourself a fun weekend – be good.
-M.
