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.
Well, it’s over.
The football season is over and with it, goes our one season adventure in the Premier League. Twelve months ago, we dared to dream and won promotion and to be fair that was totally unexpected. Another thing that wasn’t really expected by the media, so called football “experts” and the majority of fans, was that we’d actually be able to avoid relegation.
Though many of us started to believe after the first couple of months, with wins against Manchester United and Everton, we were sitting happily in the top half of the table. But we all know what happened come the end of the year. Results started to go badly and then our then manager decides to jump ship, and to top it off our next manager came in who is complete and utter bufoon, against most of the fans’ wishes.
So here we are, the end of the season and relegated back into the Championship – but at least we went out with a bang with an excellent 4-2 victory over Spurs.
Welcome to the relegation party!
It all seemed to be going the usual way of late, with Spurs scoring inside the opening three minutes, then again midway through the first half. We all started thinking about how many we would lose by this week, 4,5 maybe 6 again? Then a few minutes before half-time, up popped Wade and grabbed us a goal.
Half Time – playing pretty shit, as per usual.
It didn’t look great – so I went and bought a pie.
Mmm…pie! (With a blob of HP)
I honestly think that this pie had been cooking since February. To quote Alan Partridge, it was “hotter than the sun”. Even the volcano in Iceland isn’t as hot as this meat & potato pie was.
Still, after letting it cool for 10 minutes, it was quickly devoured.
Pie almost gone.
I honestly thought that the pie was going to be the most enjoyable thing about the day, but how wrong was I?
The lads came out with fire in their bellies and a desire to get something out of the game and after only seven minutes of the half gone, a great move resulted in us getting the equaliser.
2-2 get in there!
We were completely dominating the game and went in search of a third goal to put us in the lead and after an excellent move from Fletch, he picked out Pato who eased the ball past the Spuds keeper.
It was now 3-2 to Burnley!
Pato! Pato! Pato!
From 2-nil down to 3-2 up!
Spuds looked dead and buried, with Burnley still pushing forward for more goals – though referee Mike Dean was doing his level best with some dodgy decisions to get them a goal. He really is one of the referees that are planks!
Mike Dean. Referee and pleb.
Eventually. we did get the fourth goal from Thommo and with Hull only managing a 0-0 draw with Liverpool, that goal moved us above Hull in the table thus gaining us an extra £800,000 in “prize” money.
Full Time 4-2
So, there we go – our Premier League adventure is all over.
Will we be back, who knows…
…we can only hope.
Well, today is Election Day and if you’re over 18 and have not yet used your vote, what are you waiting for?
I’m not going to preach about who you should vote for as it has to be your decision and yours only. But please, if you do have the opportunity to vote, use it. People struggled for many years ago to get us the right to vote.
If you don’t vote, you have zero right to moan and complain about the state of affairs in your town, city and country. The standard of you or your childs education, the quality of your National Health Service, your employment…even the price of bread in the supermarket all starts with politics.
So if you don’t vote and the price of bread suddenly shoots up to a fiver, you have no grounds to complain or moan because you didn’t use your vote towards a change that YOU want.
I voted earlier today, as I have done ever since i’ve been of an age that’s allowed me to. From the photo below, i’m pretty sure you can guess which way I voted…
I said previously that I wouldn’t tell you who to vote for, but that was a little lie – all i’m going to say is please don’t vote for the Tory Toff Cameron or the nasty Quasimodo-looking fascist, Nick Griffin.
Both the Tories & BNP are rascist, homophobic wankers and their only differences are in name and the class of people in which they call their “demographic”.
No, No, No!
Absolutely No, No, No!
Just get your arses to the polling station and get voting!
-M.
On Monday, it was a Bank Holiday and as with the majority of Bank Holiday’s, you do one of two things; A) Nurse a hangover from a Sunday drinking session or B) Go for a day trip out.
I chose the latter and as you’ve probably guessed from the title, I went to…
Yep, that’s right, sunny ol’ Blackpool. (And for once, it was sunny!)
Though the main purpose of the trip was to visit the Sea Life Centre, so that my 2 year old nephew, William, could see some sharks. This was my first trip to the SLC in Blackpool and for £13.50 I thought it was pretty poor value for money – essentially you’re just paying to visit an aquarium, jeez I could do that for free by visiting the one on Manchester Rd. in Burnley.
Though i’ll admit that the aquarium in Burnley is pretty light on the whole Shark scene.
Now, it wasn’t a total let down as there were some pretty funky looking creatures, most of them I didn’t have a clue what they were. Though my observations went something like this:
Fish, Fish, Fish, (yawn) Fish, Fish…Woah WTF is that?
The above photo is a prime example of a ‘WTF’ moment.
After about half an hour I was starting to get pretty bored of the whole fishy scene and had begun moving from area to area with a little more pace – just because I wanted to see the Sharks just as much as my nephew did.
Though my boredom ceased for a short while on a few occasions because again it was either something cool or something that was really fucking freakish. Examples below…
Japanese Spider Crab aka Big Fuck Off Crab Thingy.
Regal Tang aka Dory from Finding Nemo to most of us.
No idea what this is, but it had fucked up eyes – which made me chuckle.
Before we got to the Shark section, I did get to hold a Starfish, which was a bit freaky on the hand due its sucky nature, but was also quite cool to have it sitting there in my palm. I didn’t say anything to SLC worker, but I think the Starfish took a shine to me and did a little sex wee – I was certainly glad of the nearby hand washing facilities.
We finally got onto the Shark section, the part which you walk through the tunnel and the Sharks and other fish swim all around you. It was pretty cool to be fair and was certainly the best part of the SLC – though I was disappointed to have missed feeding time by 30 mins, but nevermind.
I was so mesmerized by the Sharks, I forgot to take any decent photo’s apart from this crappy effort – so you’ll just have to make do with this. (I’m certainly not going to win any awards from the National Geographic for this)
That was it in terms of anything exciting in the SLC – we left and ventured into the chaos that is Blackpool on a Bank Holiday Monday.
We decided to wander onto the Central Pier and buy some donuts while sitting to enjoy the (lovely?) sea view – though there’s not much to see!
After munching on said Donuts, we headed back to the car. On our way off the pier, we walked past one of the usual Blackpool stalls selling the usual load of Blackpool junk – when I noticed this sign which made me roar with laughter.
Now i’m not entirely sure as to whether the balls on show were in fact smelly as I didn’t stop to give them a sniff, but I think it’s more than likely to be a really poor spelling mistake and the sign is supposed to read ‘Smiley Balls’. Though I guess that is something i’ll never know, but let’s just roll with the latter.
After the ‘ball’ incident we headed back to the car and drove a little way up the coast to the sleepy little OAP holiday hotspot town that is Cleveleys to a nice little cafe that does a cracking Fish & Chips. Once this was devoured, it was time to journey home as the grey clouds rolled in, thus bringing the usual Bank Holiday Monday rain and an end to my jolly jaunt to the seaside.
As a tribute to Blackpool and to the title of this blog, I shall leave you with a video from 80′s shock-punk band, The Macc Lads…enjoy.
-M.
Pretty simple really, the following three songs are constantly being played to my face and I think you should experience this too!
Go on, experience something new…
Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes: Even though this track is almost a year old, i’ve only just discovered it. Better late than never I say. I’ve never heard such an hypnotic song that’s made me want to nibble on some mushrooms or suck on a Peyote. Great lyrics to boot that explain the feelings of summer. Love it.
UNKLE feat. The Black Angels – Natural Selection: You may or may not know that my favourite band of all time is Depeche Mode; well, UNKLE is my next fave. Taken from the new album “Where Did The Night Fall” this track is set to be the first single. Once again this is another strangely hypnotic song featuring Australian Psychedelic Rock outfit, The Black Angels alongside the extremely talented James Lavelle and co.
Maybe I should get some sugar cubes? :p
Ocean Colour Scene – Just A Little Bit Of Love: Even though i’m more or less a strictly Electronica fan, OCS are one of my guilty pleasures. I’ve been a massive fan since the first album in the 90′s. This is one of my favourite tracks from the new album which brings OCS back on top form. Great song and great lyrics which like me, many people can relate to.
