MySpeccy
Apart from vague memories of early coin-ops and a "Pong" clone that we owned in the late 70's, it's the humble ZX Spectrum that first piqued my interest in computers and, for better or worse, made me the geeky programmer and gamer that I am today. I know longer own a Speccy, but thanks to the joys of emulation I still like to indulge in some colour-clash-saturated nostalgia from time to time. Hence, I think that this is, as I believe the young people say nowadays, "the shizzle". It's a Spectrum emulator that you can play in your web browser. Ok, nothing new there, but this one adds high-score saving and online leaderboards a-la XBox Live to your virtual rubber-keyed pal. How awesome is that? 3D Deathchase, anyone?
Labels: games
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this post
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Drunken Blogging is Never a Good Idea
Especially at this ridiculous time of the morning. Suffice to say we have been at Claire and Lee's flatwarming party, sampling foul-tasting spirits, Singstar, and one-too-many sausage rolls. And a good time it was too, though I do not envy their neighbours under the circumstances. Nobody needs to hear me butchering The Power of Love at 2am, no matter how distantly, for which I humbly apologise.
G'night!
Labels: diary, drunk, food, games
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this postFriday, October 05, 2007
"You were right about Mick Hucknell. His music's rubbish, and he's a ginger."
Play-Asia are selling the US-edition of Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for a bargaintastic £21 delivered. DS games are region free, it will likely cost at least ten quid more than that when it's released in the UK, Play-Asia take PayPal, and I happen to have just received 20-odd pounds into my PayPal account from flogging the disappointing Mario Strikers on eBay, so ordering it's a no-brainer, really.
DS Zelda! Yay!
Thing is, I might never actually put the cart into my DS, but since I've have actually bought it, I feel morally ok about downloading it from a ROM site and putting it on my flash-cart for convenience. I won't go into the whole piracy debate again here, but I do reckon that Nintendo and Sony would be smart to include a quantity of flash-memory, or a memory-card slot, in future handhelds that one could copy purchased carts to. These could be encrypted in much the same way as Wii virtual console games are, ensuring that they only run on the DS they were copied with, but would make it much easier to carry around a load of games without having a bunch of carts rattling around in your pocket.
Last night we watched 24 Hour Party People as an appetiser for Control. ("Film of the year" according to Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian.) It opens tonight, but we might wait, since R isn't feeliing too great today.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Moaning Zombie
It was dark when I got up this morning, and it's a cold and rainy grey day. That would be summer 2007 well and truly dead, then, compounding the general feeling of malaise I've had for the past few days, not helped by a low-level cold I've been nursing. All I want to do is go back to bed, and no amount of coffee is making that go away.
Sorry to be an old misery-guts, but, y'know, if I moan on here it keeps me from moaning to, and pissing off, people in the real world.
Oh, my life's not terrible at all, and I don't mean to suggest it is or wallow in self-pity. Just feeling in a bit of a funk, that's all.
One of the many things I should be thankful for is that I have a lifestyle that allows me to waste time sitting about playing video games, and at the moment Resident Evil 4 on the Wii has been the focus of my attention. I've played all the "main" Resident Evil games except for number 2, but I've never been a massive fan of them. I normally start out enjoying them, but inevitably get stuck on some ludicrously powerful boss with only a handful of bullets to my name, or have to get through a swathe of zombies with same, and give up, cursing the useless controls. Resi 4, however, has taken the focus away from careful rationing of ammo and objects, and in the process has turned into something like a cross between traditional Resident Evil and an FPS. In fact, the game that it reminds of most of all is the original Doom, in a way that no game since has done, since there is a similar fearful atmosphere tempered by the gory fun to be had in fighting large swarms of enemies at once.
This is something that Id got very, very wrong in the making of Doom 3. By designing it to be a fancy graphics demo which pushed the host machine as far as it would go, they wound up with a graphics engine that couldn't handle too many enemies on screen at once. Half the joy of the original game, and I apologise if this whole rant is making me sound like a sad adolescent, was the large-scale carnage you lay down. Take that away and you're left with a series of dull waltzes with a couple of baddies at a time. Still, at least they gave us interesting environments to play in. Oh, wait...
Anyway, if the Wiimote can be prised from my fingers, this Friday we are going to see Ian Curtis biopic Control, and I think there's a housewarming party to be going to on Saturday. So, mustn't grumble, really.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Nothing
Today is almost at an end, and I have achieved approximately bugger-all. If this were a Sunday I'd be depressed about that, but Saturdays are easier to let slide when you know you still have another day in which to make your weekend worthwhile.
I have, however, shot a lot of (not-)zombies in the face in Resident Evil 4, so it hasn't been a total loss.
Oh, and Poster now supports labels on Blogger. Woo.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
C64
I never owned a C64 in its heyday, serving with religious zeal on the side of the ZX Spectrum during the great "my-computer-is-better-than-your-computer" wars which took place in the playgrounds of the nation during the 80s. Eventually, however, I had to admit that there were some pretty great games to be had on the 64, and I bought one second-hand from a friend-of-a-friend.
The advent of full-speed emulation of these old machines, coupled with the fact that I never acquired a floppy-disk drive for it and had to sit and wait for games to load from tape, meant that it never got the attention it deserved.
Anyway, this afternoon I rescued it from the cupboard, gave it a good clean, and fired it up for the first time in years. Unfortunately, the only tape I could find to test on it was proto-Sims software toy Little Computer People, but it loaded without a hitch, and is just as charming, if a little shallow, as it was in 1986. I was sure I had others kicking about, but I don't know what happened to them.
The picture from the C64, on the same channel as the VCS, looked great. This is slightly worrying, however, as I was hoping that the distortion on the VCS was down to some factor other than the machine itself. The fact that the C64 looks so good on that telly suggests otherwise. I dont think it's anything fatal, and the VCS is still perfectly playable, but it could probably be doing with a new RF lead, and unfortunately these are hard-wired on those old models. Bah.
Anyway, C64s don't go for a whole lot on eBay, and I don't have much in the way of games or peripherals for it, so I reckon the cost of sipping + a pint is probably fair. Anyone?
Update: This has now been sold. link | 0 comment(s) | links to this post
History For Sale
As part of an ongoing mission to declutter my life and make some room, I'm selling some of my old and dusty toys. First up is my old Atari 2600 and games...
It'll be sad to see it go, but I can't honestly say that it's seen much daylight in the years since I bought it off eBay. However, I did spend a very pleasant couple of hours this afternoon cleaning it up, plugging it in, and thoroughly testing each and every game. It seems to be in perfect working order, though there was a bit of ghosting on the screen. I suspect that's down to either local interference or a modern LCD tv struggling a bit with a crappy old analogue signal. It was still perfectly playable, anyway.
Call me a massive geek if you like, but I think it's a thing of genuine beauty, partly because of its nostalgic place in video game history, partly because its games are still fun, despite being unbelievably primitive by today's standards, and partly because of its amazing 1970's design. Come on Apple - where's my faux-woodgrain iPod?
Anyone want to make me an offer before it gets thrown to the eBay wolves? It comes with two joysticks, two paddles, and the following games:
Boxed
Circus Atari
Combat
Golf
Outlaw
Pac-Man
Space Invaders
Unboxed
Dig Dug
Pitfall II
Pole Position
Star Raiders (Can't guarantee this one works, since it requires the numeric keypad add-on which I don't have.)
Update: This has now been sold. link | 0 comment(s) | links to this post
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Currently...
(So much is happening and so little is bloggable. For now, anyway. But in order to breath some kind of life into this thing I'll take memetic inspiration from Marceline on the Diskant weblog and do a quick "catchup" post.)
Listening:
The last record I bought was the debut by Bracken, which was purchased from Monorail purely on the basis that it was on the Anticon label, and they can seemingly do no wrong. This is no exception and may be my favourite album this year so far. I guess I should probably review it properly some time.
My iPod, however, is largely playing host to old episodes of In Our Time, the Radio 4 programme in which Merlvyn Bragg chats to three academic types about history, science and philosophy. The site only allows you to download the last episode, but a workmate has been archiving them for the past year or so, and I've set myself the marathon task of listening to each one, as well as the new ones when they come out.
Imagine a world in which, in order to listen to a radio programme or watch TV, you had to sit in front of a little box at exactly the right time! Apparently people used to do that! Madness.
Reading:
The lecturer who took the writing course I've just finished repeatedly recommended Raymond Carver as a master of the short story, so I'm finally getting round to reading his collection "Cathedral". His style is very clipped and minimal, which is refreshing if a little dry at times, but they are all expertly constructed. Like Bukowski but without the rage.
Watching:
Nothing on TV, since Doctor Who finished. Well, ok, and the odd episode of Big Brother, which has caught me more this year than the last few, but not in the same obsessive way as the first few years.
Last night we watched The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada which was fabulous. Tommy Lee Jones is, as they say, "the man."
Anticipating:
Supersonic this weekend. Also, NYC in August. And other stuff I can't talk about yet.
Working on:
Poster is still in progress, and will see a beta release one of these days. Just to prove it really exists, here's a wee screenshot...
Plus occasional tunes, occasional writing, and occasional paralysing panic when I realise that I've got a million more important things I should be doing, like getting the flat cleaned up and on the market.
Labels: books, diary, games, movies, music, poster
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this postMonday, March 12, 2007
Ice Cream and Jelly
A big run of posts and then two weeks of nothing. Blogging and exercising have more in common than you might think. Both are largely dependant on maintaining momentum and fall by the wayside as soon as I'm remotely busy.
In the last couple of weeks I've been involved in moving offices at work (to a smaller, but far prettier and even more central location), signed up for a creative writing class at Glasgow uni (starting next month), saw LCD Soundsystem at the Barras (excellent as ever, despite Moog malfunctions), bought Excite Truck for the Wii (looks like an early PS2 game but plays like Stunt Car Racer, so I'm enjoying it.) and, last night, attended an "old-school" 80's-style birthday party, winning pass-the-parcel, musical statues and the weird Mars-bar eating game, the rules of which are too long winded to go into here. I am the kids party-game king!
Right, maybe with the backlog of events cleared with extreme brevity I can get back into the habit of writing a little every day. Wish me luck.
Today is R's birthday. She is somethingty-something years old. She has to work today, which is sucky, but we're going out for a meal tonight with some friends. Unfortunately, the musical saw I ordered for her has been delayed. No, seriously.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Wii Moany Valentine
A contender for worst blog post title of all time? I think so!
Anyway, this past week has been almost entirely mince, until about 8pm last night when it started to pick up a bit. We had a stupid, stupid weekend, which I won't go into but I suspect that we owe grovelling apologies to a number of friends we blew off, and we are probably now pariahs in this town. Since then work has been a complete bastard, a sandwich of crisp stress and fresh rage between two big slices of wholemeal overtime.
Of course, yesterday was Valentine's day, for men one of the stressiest days of the year anyway. Fortunately I managed to duck out of work at a reasonable hour. We booked a nice restaurant that we had been to before and which had always been really good. Of course, they were blaring "romantic" hits off of what I assume was one of those "Greatest Love Songs Ever" CDs - the type of thing more likely to be bought in a service station that in an actual record store - and the table was covered in rose petals, but we assumed that the high cheese factor was a necessary evil of the occasion and the service and food would be good. Dead wrong. I don't know if it was because it was a special "Valentine's menu", but it slow in coming and deeply rubbish, giving the impression that the regular owners had turned the place over to a bunch of catering students for the evening and buggered off home. Even the heart-shaped choccies that came with the bill.
But, like I said, things got better - we went to see Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright's new film Hot Fuzz, which, despite pretty much taking Shaun of the Dead, removing the references to zombie movies and replacing them with references to American cops-n-gunplay flicks, was immense fun. I haven't laughed so much ages, and never, in recent memory, in the cinema, and playing "spot the British TV comedian" is always a joy. It's not often you go to see a reasonably high-budget movie featuring the likes of Bill Bailey or Adam Buxton, and it kinda makes you hope that the transatlantic success of Shaun can be reproduced for Hot Fuzz, if just because it tickles me to think of such quixotic british-born talent (or to put it another way - a bunch of blokes whose late-night twatting about on Channel 4 I've enjoyed), getting that sort of exposure.
That said, fingers crossed that Pegg's recent Hollywood success doesn't see him exclusively trading these sodden shores and partnership with Nick Frost for sunny LA and David Schwimmer.
Ironically, Friends was always the show I contrasted Pegg/Frost/Wright's Spaced with when raving about it to people. Where Friends was about beautiful, glamorous, rich people living in New York, Spaced centered around a bunch of listless British 20-somethings who played video games, enjoyed the odd smoke, went out on the piss, and didn't really know what they wanted to do with their lives. In short, it was a sitcom about me and my friends.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not about to knock anyone else's success. I think it's great that Simon Pegg is getting offers left and right from over the pond, just so long as it doesn't stop him making the likes of Shaun and Hot Fuzz as well.
Anyway, after the film we wandered home with big grins on our faces to find a Parcelforce card through the door. I was dreading a trip out to the depot, which isn't in the handiest of places to get to if you don't have a car, but fortunately they had left it with the neighbours. My Wii had arrived! Yay! Didn't get much time to play with it though, since it was late and I had to get up the next morning, though we did enjoy setting up our Miis and fiddling with the Weather and News channels. Should have more time to play with it this weekend, I hope.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Decomputerisation
As part of the eternal war against kipple, yesterday I sold my SNES and N64 consoles to Dave in work. I'm sure he'll give them a good home. They simply weren't getting used often enough, and my life is cluttered enough as it is. I seem to vacillate between a pack-rat mentality which drives me to collect stuff I really don't need, and a more minimalistic personality that just wants to chuck out everything and have a life that can be easily packed in one suitcase. Right now, I'm in the latter stage. It's not that there weren't games for those two consoles that I enjoy, but I've got most of them on GBA, DS or Gamecube now, and Goldeneye just makes me feel ill when I try to play it nowadays.
I have too much crap cluttering up this house. I threw away all my old Edge magazines the other day, which was quite liberating. I still have a wardrobe full of old computers and consoles, some of which I owned at the time they were "current", and some bought on a whim from eBay, hooked up once or twice, then banished into the darkness to gather dust. These need selling, but for most that's a lengthy project in itself. My Atari ST and Amiga in particular were well used, and need a proper cleaning before they can be sold. And a thorough testing to make sure they still work, of course...
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Losing My Wiiginity
Last night we went round to Simon's for a shot of his Wii, and while it's hard to shake the perception that it's just a Gamecube with a nifty controller, I enjoyed myself immensely, and will be getting one as soon as our financial situation is more stable. Wii Sports, Rayman and Warioware all got hammered, with the frenetic minigame madness of the latter providing the most giggles as well as the clearest indication of just how versatile the Wiimote can be, having you use it like a pen one minute, hold it over your head the next, before making you flap your arms frenetically or hold it at your hips and hula. You will, of course, look like a twat, but you'll be having so much fun you won't care.
Today was pretty quiet. We got up late, then got fired into giving the kitchen a proper clean, going through our cupboards, taking everything out, and chucking anything that was past its date. And believe me, there was a lot that went in the bin, the oldest item having a use-by date from 2003. Also dumped was a lot of stuff we knew we'd never use. Actually, it was pretty cathartic - I quite enjoy chucking stuff out. It's pretty liberating to be free of stuff that's just cluttering up your life.
Next step: the spare room/office/junk pile. But not today.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
After-Party
We had our celebration for R gaining dual-nationality last night. I think everyone had a good time - I certainly did. Not too hung-over today, either - just that slightly fuzzy feeling which is actually quite pleasant. I'm pleased to report that nobody embarrassed themselves too badly. Just some good tunes and a good laugh with friends. Perfect.
I'm quite glad it's over, mind you. I have been feeling pretty stressed about the whole thing since coming back from the US, and on returning to work last week we all got one of those "there's a big release due in a fortnight so we expect you to work late until then." I don't mind that too much - it doesn't happen all that often and it's pretty much par for the course. I doubt that there's a software company in the world that doesn't require its developers to put in some extra hours near release time, but it did put a crimp on the time I had available for party-related planning, and I am a dreadful one for leaving things until the last minute.
Tonight I think we're going over to a friend's house to play with his Wii. (Fnarr, etc.) This will be my first shot of one, so I'm quite looking forward to it. We were planning on getting one after returning from the US, but after spending a lot of cash on a new computer I can't really justify a new console as well right now. Though I can see that position changing depending on how much fun we have tonight.
In the meantime, however, the house is an absolute tip and I need to be cleaning, not blogging...
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
+/-
I am beginning to suspect that I've fallen into a fortnightly cycle. Since my last post I had a second attack of the doldrums but today the sun has come back out, both literally and metaphorically. It's been a horrid couple of weeks for weather; the rain has hammered down almost incessantly, but at lunchtime today I saw my first blue sky in what seems like ages.
I am looking forward to Christmas, though more for the "going away" part than anything else, since we're spending it with R's family this year. There's a lot of stuff needing done between now and then, however. Most of it dull necessity, but we're going to the Xmas All Tomorrow's Parties this year as well, which should be fun but feels a bit like a chore right now.
I have pre-ordered Guitar Hero 2, and have been limbering up with the original in preparation for my return to the battlefield of ROCK! Primus! Rush! Spinal Tap! Can't wait! Almost pre-ordered a Wii at the same time, but I think we're going to wait until the New Year before scratching that itch. Can't be arsed with the hysteria surrounding console launches, and won't have much time to play with the thing until after Christmas anyway. I must admit, that I'm also increasingly tempted by the XBox360. Not so much for the "big" titles, which seem to be following the pattern of it's predecessor in being targetted solely at 14-year-old boys who only want to play racers and gory FPS's, but I love the idea of Live Arcade and the way that online multiplayer and rankings seem to be reinvigorating the idea of "social gaming". The ability to stream video from any Windows PC is also a draw, though I'd prefer if it had wi-fi built in (and maybe a firmware update to the wireless Wii could trump the XBox in this regard, since the latter is locked down to wmv/avi files only, I believe.) Perhaps when the price comes down a bit I'll see if I can't pick one up.
I'm still convinced, though, that the DS is the best console in the world ever, and only recently has my grip on it (or its grip on me) loosened. I've even managed to spend some time away from my Animal Crossing village! I must confess that I was a little disappointed that upon my return nobody mentioned that they hadn't seen me in two weeks. Pah. I now have the largest possible house in the game, so my primary motivation to keep playing has evaporated, but there's still bug-offs to win and a museum to fill. I wonder what the Wii version will be like, and whether it will allow you to transfer your character from the DS?
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
I Cannot Wait To Play This
Clicky
And yes, it is real.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
What's big, black and hard and makes Alex happy?
My new desk, of course!
It might seem pretty sad to be so excited about a something as prosaic as a desk, but when I sit at it, in my new comfy chair, I feel quite... well... empowered, I suppose. Not that there is anything I can do at it that I couldn't at my old desk, but it was rickety and tiny, impossible to declutter, impossible to clean, shoved in a corner behind the sort of chair that looks reasonably comfortable - all padded and adjustable - but actually numbs both cheeks in a matter of minutes. My new chair has a straight back, no padding, and the only adjustment you can make to it is to pick it up and move it somewhere else, but it's a million times more pleasant to sit on. At first I thought I had made a bit of a mistake with the chair, having tried it only in front of a completely different desk at the shop. At home it seemed a bit too low initially, but in fact it's working out quite well, and has the added bonus of forcing me to sit up straight for once. The desk itself is just a big slab of laminated wood on a pair of trestles. No drawers, no cd-rack, no slidey-out keyboard shelf, no nonsense. Perfect.
With the exception of that ill-advised year of hell in which I moved back into my parent's house in order to save up cash to buy a place (my advice to anyone considering a similar move: nooooooooooo!) I've always had a desk at home, ever since my dad mounted a blue-painted piece of wood to a corner of my bedroom for me to stick my portable telly and ZX Spectrum on, and as a result I don't see it as one of the shackles of working life. It's a place to both be creative and have fun, to tinker with programs and write stories and make music. The desk has been my garden shed and the cockpit of my Cobra Mk III, so it's important that I be comfortable there.
The other night I dragged my old chair, a knackered bookcase and the old desk out onto the pavement for the bulk refuse collection. In the morning they were all gone, except the desk, which they apparently don't want, and is just getting rained on. I don't feel particularly sorry for it.
Labels: diary, games, memories
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this postWednesday, October 04, 2006
¿Que Blog Es?
After another all-too-brief flurry of blogging activity, I've gone quiet again. When life's kinda boring I feel like I don't have anything to write about, and when it's interesting, like when we went to Iceland, it feels like too much to tackle and do justice to. And anyway, the pictures do a better job than my rather dry prose.
Here's what I've been doing lately...
Learning Spanish - Every Wednesday night R and I have a Spanish night class. It started a bit shakily - the teacher immediately strolled in and started talking to us in Spanish, and neither of us had much to begin with. Glancing around the room revealed, however, that most of the other folk in the class were in the same boat, and looking nervous. The college's website made it sound like it was suitable for near-beginners, and I think the teacher just likes to set the bar a wee bit higher than you can manage in order to motivate you. It's hard work, but I am enjoying it, though I'm not doing as much mid-week revision as I'd like.
Buying furniture - Ok, so I was briefly tempted by the Daft Punk coffee table and the opportunity to make the flat look like the set of a 1970's science-fiction movie, but the £999 price tag was a bit offputting. I do have a new computer desk coming this weekend, though, which I'm actually quite excited about, given that my current one is tiny, falling apart, and shoved in a cluttered wee corner of the spare room. There's also a comfier chair to accompany it. One side-effect of this could be more regular posting both here and on the noisecast, since being at my desk should no longer be an open invitation to orthopedic pain.
Growing a beard - What started out as laziness has developed into full-blown facial fungus. I'm quite enjoying having something to stroke while thinking, now that it's grown out of the itchy phase and has gotten quite soft. I'm going to have to buy a beard trimmer soon, though.
Playing Lego Star Wars II on the PS2 - Massive free-wheeling fun, and the first non-DS game I've picked up in month.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Terse and Boring Stuff
Mum has had her gall bladder removed and is recovering after a slight longer-than-normal stay in hospital. Eating fatty, fried foods not recommended, so her diet cannot go back to what it was before she fell ill, but at least she can eat again. I had some unpleasant Cronenberg-esque body-horror nightmares the other night that seemed to be inspired by thoughts of having internal organs removed.
Speaking of organ removal, we rented Transamerica the other night. It was very good.
Steve Irwin died. That's a bit of a shame.
Cleaned the flat a bit.
On holiday in a week. Woo.
No time for site redesign.
No time for Noisecast either, but I feel the need to rectify that very soon.
We saw Devendra Banhart play at the weekend. He was very good.
Discovered the other day that some enterprising soul has Elite for the Gameboy Advance. This makes me very happy indeed, though docking is proving to be a bit of a hit-and-miss affair with the DSLite's d-pad. It's still a thing of beauty - I've always wanted a portable version of Elite. The only thing that would be better is a proper DS version, with the scanner and things on the bottom screen and a stylus-based interface for trading and whatnot.
Blogging as momentum-gaining for further writing scuppered by bloody-minded refusal to write proper sentences.
Blogger API now incompatible with w.bloggar, it seems. Bum.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Classic Games In Stop Motion
I love the home-made feel of this. Reminds me of Morph.
(Nicked from Gordon)
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
So... yeah...
My blog is now, as you can most likely see, unless you are colour blind, or partially-sighted, or using a text-based browser, or apply your own style-sheet to all web pages in order to minimize the chance of your boss spotting that you're surfing, mostly green. Substantially uglier than the old template, yes, but also a fair bit less default, in the hope that symbolically taking more active ownership of it will encourage me to post more. We'll see. I do wish I had some iota of design skill, however. I am generally useless as far as the visual arts are concerned. I can't draw for toffee, and you wouldn't want me choosing the decor for your house unless you like white, white and more white since I know that any attempt to apply a more adventurous colour scheme will be of a similar standard to my old flat's eye-watering bright-yellow-and-green combination.
No noisecast this week, since my free time is being absorbed by my new G6 Flash. This is a nifty little gadget that allows the execution of "homebrew" applications (and... er... "backups" of commercial software) to run on the Nintendo DS. I primarily bought it for the emulation possibilities - the prospect of playing 20-year-old NES games on the train fills me with geeky joy - but being able to have a bunch of NDS and GBA games on a single cartridge is also mighty convenient. I'm hoping to try my hand at some DS development soon, and I'll post the results here as soon as there's anything to see other than dramatic crashes.
The next consumer electronic item I buy will most likely be a massive memory card for my camera since, as previously mentioned, we're taking a long weekend in Iceland at the beginning of September. I am stupidly excited, and rapidly becoming an Iceland bore, though I won't inflict tedious reams of Icelandic trivia on you just yet. Needless to say, a great many pictures will be taken and Flickred.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Hello... ?
I don't seem to have anything to say any more. I should probably just stick to noises, then.
We're going to Iceland next month, though. I'm looking forward to that.
I've just ordered a DS Flash Cart that will allow me to run emulators and homebrew apps on my favourite console ever. I've even been browsing some tutorials on developing for the thing, and it looks slightly less impossible than I had imagined.
Labels: diary, games, iceland, travel
link | 1 comment(s) | links to this postThursday, July 13, 2006
The Owls Are Not What They Seem
You're probably sick of me banging on about Animal Crossing on here. So I'm going going to do so elsewhere.
Then I'm going to shut up about it.
The DS Lite is ace. Almost certainly the best console I've ever owned. But it's causing a problem in that I'm spending far too much time playing games, and not enough reading books, making music, keeping the flat tidy, or exercising. Normally my game playing comes in dribs and drabs. If I've bought something new that I'm really enjoying I might play it fairly intensely for a couple of evenings, but mostly I try to maintain a balanced diet of activities. But because there's a fairly large number of appealing games in the DS catalogue that can be picked up for not-unreasonably sums of money, I've amassed a nice little pile of games for it in the past few weeks, each of which beg, nay, demand my attention, to the point where I'm seriously considering a period of voluntary DS-abstinance in order to deal with those niggly-little real-world issues like ensuring that your home isn't a total pig-sty.
Still, I'm not a total shut-in. We're going to the movies tonight to see The Wind That Shakes The Barley, and I'm even going to be exposed to those twin strangers "fresh air" and "exercise" on Sunday as I'm going hillwalking with some folk from work.
And yes, I'm leaving the DS at home.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Hnery Henry Rollins is a Fibber
Good Saturday. Too much coffee with J&L, then super secret surprise birthday party in Sleazys spent drinking booze, shaking my ass to many metallic tunes, and, er, talking about Animal Crossing with mar-c. Afterwards we headed to the ABC, but my fuel tank was almost empty and I slipped into curmungeon mode, so didn't stay long.
More noise soon...
Update - Yes, yes, Henry Rollins, not Hnery, good name though it might be. And no, it wasn't my birthday. I was hungover, ok?
Friday, June 30, 2006
"This is a blog. It has a range of zero units."
Jesus I'm tired. Got to bed before midnight last night, but it wasn't enough to counteract the accumulative effect of too many late nights. In a suprisingly decent mood all the same, though. Caffeine, how I love thee, but you do make me feel rather odd when you wake up some parts of me and not others.
Advance Wars:Dual Strike turned up in the post the other day. Only three weeks after ordering it from Tesco online, but it was a bargaintastic £12.99 so I won't grumble too much. The original Advance Wars was, without question, my most played game on the GBA, and I've still got a couple of games running of the home-brew web version, so I'm expecting to enjoy it quite a bit. I've only played the first couple of missions so far. The touch-screen interface is perfect for what's basically a point-and-click game anyway, and it's nicely presented, but what's frustrating is that the optional tutorial that was included in the first game has now been unskipably rolled into the campaign, so I'm having to plow through missions in which, every time I select a unit, a couple of characters pop up and have a lengthy conversation along the lines of: "Hey, what's this?" "It's a tank. It can move like this." "Cool." Yeah, they're skippable by hitting the fiddly little "start" button, but it's still a pain in the tits. I expect that once I'm past the tutorial missions that I'll start enjoying the game a lot more, but it's baffling that they didn't think to make the tutorials skippable for those of us who have played an Advance Wars title before (not to mention the lengthy series of Japan-only games that preceeded them.)
We watched The Brothers Grimm the other night, Terry Gilliam's first film after the Don Quixote debacle. Grimm got pretty horrible reviews, but, it being Gilliam, we knew that it would be enjoyable to some degree. And it was on pay-per-view so we wouldn't have to go down the video shop.
The Brothers Grimm is frustratingly ok. It feels like a great film trapped within a mediocre one. Moments are pure Gilliam, visually lush and imaginative, while others are hobbled by some extremely clunky dialog and awful CGI that wouldn't look out of place on TV. One more draft of the script and a slightly bigger budget would have worked wonders, but presumably his post-Quixote reputation is such that coming up with the cash required to adequately realise his grand designs isn't so easy nowadays. A shame, that.
I still haven't seen Tideland, however.
Labels: diary, games, links, music
link | 1 comment(s) | links to this postThursday, June 29, 2006
One Week On...
.. .from getting my DS, and other than a daily ten minutes on Brain Training (Got my brain age down to 25, from an initially awful 47), and a bit of Zoo Keeper (ace, but it makes my eyes go funny, and it seems a lot harder than the flash version that used to soak up my lunchtimes), I have, predictably, been on Animal Crossing most of the time. So far, I've caught loads of fish and butterflies, wrote an angry letter to a baboon chastising him for upsetting my bear friend, and, through the miracle of wi-fi technology, gone to visit a friend in another village, and traded fruit with him.
I am thirty years old.
Today, I am listening to "It's A Wonderful Life" by Sparklehorse, thanks to someone in work who brought it in. There is a rare joy in rediscovering an album that you killed by excessive play a long time ago then never listened to again.
"Disintegration" by The Cure is still rubbish, though, no matter what the kid from South Park says.
Tonight, I have absolutely nothing on my calendar, and given that I'm going through one of my periodic busy spells that punctuate long stretches as a lonely pariah, it's actually quite welcome. I plan on doing laundry, and tackling the teetering tower of dirty plates that are in the sink before they kill someone. Get me!
Friday, June 23, 2006
No Time To Blog...
... Sorry, but I'm too busy living an exceptionally twee alternative life in a village full of anthropomorphic animals right now. Come back later.
Labels: games
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this postThursday, June 22, 2006
Gordblessyew Mister Parcelforce
Or, as I put it in my text to R earlier: "My DS arrived!!!" Since under most circumstances I consider the user of multiple exclamation marks to be a sin only marginally less serious than, say, murder, you can tell that I'm quite excited. One day before the official release, too, which is nice, considering that I mostly expected it to turn up early next week sometime.
Labels: games
link | 3 comment(s) | links to this postFriday, June 16, 2006
I Believe In Surprising Giraffes
I had what was shaping up to be quite a lengthy post on this subject, but on reading it back it came across as slightly smug and patronising, so I chucked it. The basis of it, however, was that people tend to gravitate towards religion because, asides from cultural/familial pressures, the view of the universe that it offers - one in which there is an afterlife, someone looking out for you, and a system of perfect justice whereby bad people get their just deserts one way or another - is quite comforting and makes this life a more tolerable one.
Most people would call me an atheist, and I think that's probably a fair label, but I wonder if the reason that I am attracted to a world view in which the universe is purely mechanistic and there is no unknowable intelligence pulling the strings is, perhaps, for similar reasons. I don't particularly fear death. (Or rather, not existing. The horrible pain that often preceeds it scares me shitless, but no amount of religion is going to take that away.) I do, however, find the concept of a perfect deity who watches you at all times and could step in an alleviate all suffering but chooses not to because it's all part of some grand plan to which we are not privy, but are just pawns, far less palatable than the idea that the universe is simply a dumb mechanism, and when bad things happen to you then... welll... shit happens, it's nothing personal.
Second time round for this post, and this time it sounds like an excerpt from a teenager's diary. Oh well.
Because I can no longer post without mentioning the DS Lite that I don't have yet, I should probably mention that Zoo Keeper arrived today, making a total of three games that I can't play for another week. Bah.
Labels: games, philosophy
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this postMonday, June 12, 2006
Hot Brain
Pissing it down today, but it seems only appropriate for a Monday spent at work after a lovely, hot, sunny weekend. One in which - shock! - we actually left the house and did stuff, even if it was just within the confines of Glasgow. Adding to the weekend's series of unlikely events, on Saturday night I actually went to a club, and didn't complain about it and even had a bit of a dance.
It's the sun - it does weird things to me.
Today I have been listening to "Animamima", an album by Japanese guitar-noisenik Keiji Haino and 20-piece sitaar orchestra Sitaar Tah!, which I bought on a whim in Monorail based on some nice packaging and a breathlessly excited blurb that someone who works there had slipped into the front of the cover. Not particularly great reasons to buy an album, I know, and I pretty much expected it to be two hours of unlistenable noise that I'd play once and stick on eBay, or, worse still, egregiously keep around solely for "my record collection is better than your record collection"-type bragging rights.
Man, was I wrong.
It's not particularly tuneful, but nor is it the straight-up unstructured guitar-noise that I had come to expect, and realise that I didn't much enjoy listening to, having seen Haino perform at the Instal festival a couple of years ago. Instead, it is an unexpectedly beautiful thing which builds slowly from a bare tickling of the ears to a powerful meditative thrum that made me feel quite peculiar. Listening to it in work was something of a problem, as I tended to stop an stare into space for extended periods, but I felt oddly refreshed after taking off my headphones, as though I had just undergone the aural equivalent of being driven through a car-wash.
Speaking of cleaning my head, the second part of my DS order arrived today - Brain Training. I'm not sure how much truth there is in its claims to be able to improve your memory and mental agility with just a ten-minute session each day, but I'm willing to give it a go. My memory is absolutely shocking, and getting worse (dates in particular never seem to stick), so anything that might improve the situation has to be worth a shot.
Still two weeks to go before I can actually play the thing, of course. In fact, Brain Age was something of a test of Play.com's delivery practices. It was released on Friday, but I was hopeful that they would send it out in advance so that it would arrive on the release date. Sure enough, checking my account the day before showed me that they had posted it early, but it didn't actually arrive until this morning. Since I don't trust our postman to even bother putting a card through the door, I tend to have mail-order items delivered to work instead of the flat. It looks like the weekend of the 24th is going to be an odd one, then, where I sort-of want to go back to work on Monday, if just to pick up my new toy.
(Update - just posted a re-tooled version of my Kaiji Haino/Sitaar Tah enthusings on Diskant.)
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
666
You know, if this is the apocalypse, it's a lot more pleasant than I'd imagined. It's a lovely, warm, sunny day, and it seems like summer has finally got it's arse out of bed and started work for the year. It's been a long time coming, too, after a long, cold, wet, miserable winter and, well, I hesitate to use the word "spring". "After-winter" maybe? "Winter 2"?
Oddly, it's so nice it makes me want to leave the country. I've been sort-of resisting the idea of going on holiday this year. Not that I wouldn't want to go somewhere, but we could be doing with saving up some cash just now. However, I've been given a wee taste of nice weather and now I'm hungry for more. Hopefully the weather will stay nice this weekend and we can get away for a wee trip somewhere close, but the thought of going away on a proper holday is getting more and more appealing, and, hey, it's more fun than paying bills, certainly.
Of course, my desire to save hasn't prevented me from pre-ordering one of these:
I've kinda fancied a DS for a while but was able to hold off until they announced the Lite. Frustratingly, I ordered it and a few games from play.com, who ship each part of an order as soon as it becomes available. I say frustratingly, because it means that I've got Animal Crossing sitting at home (and more to come), but I can do nothing more than read the manual and marvel at how small DS carts are until the end of the month, when the DS Lite gets officially released in the UK.
Off to see The Wicker Man tonight, which is getting a showing at the GFT because of the date. Hopefully it's the full "director's cut" version, and not the hacked-up original release. It's pretty unique among horror movies, I reckon, in that by the end of the film you find yourself siding with the "bad guys". Edward Woodward's god-fearing policeman, sent to Summer Isle to uncover the mystery of a girl who has disappeared, is such a self-righteous prick that you don't really mind when bad things start happening.
I was talking about the Wicker Man with one of my colleagues earlier today, and he pointed out something that I'd never noticed before. Without wanting to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't seen it, Edward Woodward's character is set up for an unpleasant fate right from, or, in fact, before, the beginning of the film, but is effectively offered a way out well before the end. If he'd just shagged Britt Eckland when he had the chance, it could have all been so different. Hard to have much sympathy for someone who turns down that sort of opportunity. link | 0 comment(s) | links to this post
Friday, May 12, 2006
Stabbed In The Face
Yesterday, the missus received her first paycheque from her new job and, feeling flush for the first time in ages, we went on a bit of a post-work spending spree. She got some clothes, I got Ico, and together we spent far too much money on music, and some tickets for forthcoming gigs. (Lightning Bolt on Sunday, A Silver Mount Zion on the 1st of June.)
This week has been especially warm and sunny, which helps my moods considerably but does contribute to increased alcohol consumption, particularly since we've discovered that the refitted Renfrew Ferry has a nice little open-air spot, and doesn't get too busy dead on 5pm, since it's a little out of the way, but convenient for our office.
I played the much-recommended Ico for a while when we got home. (Taking Guitar Hero out of the Playstation for the first time in a fortnight.) It's certainly beautiful, and there's much to like about it, but I'm not quite in love with it yet. I admire the way that it's storyline slowly reveals itself without pointless exposition, the fact that it keeps the screen uncluttered by health bars or text (save for occasional subtitles during the cut-scenes, which are, thankfully, in the original Japanese, and not dubbed by fourth-rate voice actors), and the gentle ambience of its understated soundtrack. For all it's lovely presentation, however, the jumping/climbing/pulling switches dynamic is all very Prince of Persia, to the extent where, at times, I feel like I'm playing through that game again, with the prince reduced to a twelve-year-old. I'm not far into it, however, and there's still time for it to grab me.
Looking forward to Lightning Bolt on Sunday, now that my ears have just about recovered from the pounding that Wolf Eyes inflicted the other week and can stomach some nasty guitar noise once again.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Toronto Airport Code In Morse
Three weeks into shiny-new blog, and it's already a wasteland of wind and ghosts. I haven't even started messing with the template yet. It feels like taking delivery of a new car, and just driving it to the shops and back once in a while without even taking the plastic wrapping off the seats. I think. I dunno. I've never owned a car. Do new ones come with plastic on the seats? If they did, it would be like that, anyway.
My excuse, if I have one, is that we've been playing Guitar Hero until our fingers ache and when we close our eyes all we can see are coloured circles hurtling towards us... red, red, red-yellow, blue, blue, ORANGE!
I seem to be meeting a lot of gamers lately, and it's nice to be around people who speak the same language with actual sounds and that, instead of just on the occasional messageboard. Guitar Hero, despite costing fifty quid in the shops and making you look like a fanny while you play it, seems to be a massive hit, with most of the PS2 owners I know splashing out on a copy over the last few weeks. And there's no denying that it is stupidly fun. The announcement that Guitar Hero 2 will contain YYZ by Rush - a tune which may teenage self spent far more time than is decent miming along to, ensures that the pain ain't going away any time soon.
I would write more, but that solo in "Bark at the Moon" is a killer on hard, and I need to save my fingers.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Symphony of Procrastination
A nice long weekend has just past, which despite only being long on one side, felt longer for being busy with gigs (Buck65, Aphex Twin) and a gradual regression to childhood. Went out to the Glasgow Science Center on Monday with J which was fun. It's really for kids, but we had a ball.
But the biggest time-sink this weekend has been Guitar Hero, to the extent that a low-grade RSI is making it difficult to type this. They impregnate the plastic from which the controller is made with crack, I swear. Still, if I have to get signed off work because of my crippled hands, I'll have more time to play Guitar Hero, and will hurt my hands more, so I can have more time off work, so I can play more Guitar Hero....
Friday, April 28, 2006
<Insert Obvious Pun Here>
At first, I thought it had to be a hoax - that Nintendo's new console, the only one of the "next-gen" I'm even remotely interested in so far, was going to be renamed from "Revolution" to "Wii". (As in "We"). Sadly, I was wrong. It's official. And I can't help but feeling that unless Nintendo come to their senses and rename it for Europe - in the manner of the Famicom/NES - they may have just lost the next-gen console war before it even begins.
So long as it has games I want to play, I don't really care what it's called. I'll still buy one. But how many kids are going to be telling their parents that they want a Wii for Xmas, or will be boasting to their mates in the playground that they've got a Wii under the telly at home? Only the ones who are already bullied to the extent that any extra humiliation won't matter much. No matter how good the actual console is, it's hard not to see this as marketing suicide. It's not even as though we can blame Nintendo for being Japanese and not understanding how the name might go over in the English-speaking world. They are a huge multi-national company nowadays. Surely someone at Nintendo Europe or USA put their hand up and went "er... are you sure that's a good idea?"
Still, maybe they've got a plan of incredible marketing genius up their sleeve that will avert disaster. It's going to take that, a name change, or the PS3 being released as the "Sony Poostation" to avert disaster, I fear.
Labels: games
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this postMonday, April 24, 2006
An Olympic-Standard Mayonaisse
Do you ever have days when you feel - not tired as such - but as though you haven't quite woken up all the way? When everything is sort of fuzzy and indistinct and you start to wonder if electro-shock therapy might not be such a bad idea? No? Just me, then. I feel like that today, and no amount of caffeine is shifting it. Maybe it's something to do with the cat waking me up at 5.30am demanding food. Or maybe it's sunspots or the government putting drugs in the water or something.
Yesterday was the first really nice day of the year in Glasgow, and I was able to go out in just a t-shirt. And trousers, underwear socks and shoes, of course. I went to the gym for the first time in weeks, had a good ol' workout, then went and bought a fruit smoothie and salady things on the way home, protected by the warm glow of healthy self-righteousness that exercising always imparts. Lovely.
It's been a long time since I last lusted after a piece of technology, but with all the ace games that are out, or in the pipeline, for it, plus the snazzy new redesign, I reckon that my next self-indulgent purchase will be a Nintendo DS Lite. But can I hold off for the UK release (nebulously reported as being "in the summer", but with no actual date announced), or are the delights of network-play Tetris and Mario Kart, and the ability to play my GBA games on a screen I can actually see in anything other than direct sunlight, going to make me an impatient idiot who buys an imported one?
Friday, April 21, 2006
Videogames Made Me A Terrorist
The TV was on the other night, and someone - some evil, unknown force - tied us to the sofa with unpleasant equipment on our heads to keep our eyes pinned open like in A Clockwork Orange and made us watch Nanny 911 - the show in which an American couple who have spawned some irritating squealing brats get a visit from an improbably dressed British "nanny" who helps them get their kids under control. It's awful and makes me feel dirty, but it's terribly compulsive. I particularly like the bit where this week's parents blankly refuse to admit there's something wrong - "So my kids beat the shit out of each other. Boys will be boys! Who is she to tell me how to raise my kids?" - when they've gone and bloody invited a nanny into their house in the first place. It's almost as if the producers give each family the same script to recite to camera every week in order to give the final moments of the show, where order is restored in their household and they have to admit that the nanny knows her stuff, more emotional impact. Anyway, it's shite car-crash reality TV that invites the viewer to sneer and feel superior to its subjects, and I can help but love it.
In this particular episode, it was clear that the parents were using video games to babysit their kids. For hours every day they were dumped in front of an XBox or Gamecube while mum got on with a nebulous "running of the house" (Dad, of course, was out working a gruelling "35-40 hours a week." Poor lamb.), and even in the car they were handed Gameboys to keep them quiet. Naturally, whenever they weren't playing games they were little terrors, having screaming tantrums and beating each other, and the family dog, black-and-blue.
All throughout this, I could sense R glaring at me as if to say "is this what our kids are going to be like?" I didn't care much, though, 'cos I was in the middle of a game of Advance Wars on the GBA.
An example of terribly bad, negligent parenting, then, but all throughout the show statements like "these videogames are responsible for your child's bad behaviour" kept cropping up, and the implication that gaming is inherently evil and will turn your children into violent psychopaths was a constant throughout. Which, frankly, got on my tits and made me want to camp outside the headquarters of the company that made this show with a high-powered sniper-rifle and take out as many employees as possible in a fit of rage.
The truth of the matter, of course, is that too much of anything is a bad thing (that's why they call it too much, see?) , which doesn't make videogames any more evil than movies, books, or cheesecake. Interestingly, it was never made clear exactly what games the little tykes in that household were playing. For what are presumably reasons of copyright, TV screens were blurred out whenever they were in shot, and suspiciously generic-sounding "gunfire-and-death" noises dubbed on. They could have been playing fucking Tetris for all I know, but obviously, if you let your 8-year old play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, an violent game with "adults only" warnings all over the box, the game is not to blame for any effect it has on your child - you are.
Videogames are getting a rough time in the media just now, thanks in part to morality crusaders like Jack Thompson. In the eyes of the anti-gaming brigade, there is no difference between GTA and Animal Crossing. Being of the same medium taints one with the negative connotations of the other simply because it's a young medium that is poorly understood. This is highly troubling to those of us who love games, but we should take heart. This is not something to be feared, but a sign of an art-form coming of age - when it is prevalent enough for its most extreme artifacts to get up the noses of the establishment.
Anyway, the point of my little rant is that there is an excellent wee article over on Wired about how new forms of media have traditionally elicited knee-jerk reactions from society's self-appointed watchdogs, including comic books, the telephone, and that evil corrupter of morals, the waltz.
Labels: games, links, television
link | 2 comment(s) | links to this postThursday, April 20, 2006
Boring Life Catchup Post
Here are some things I've been doing instead of blogging:
Working Work was exceptionally hectic for a while there. Fortunately, it's all calmed down a bit now, and I've got a bit of my life back.
Playing with Flock Basically a very-highly customized verison of Firefox, I tried it when the first release was made public, thought it looked kinda interesting, but binned it because, frankly, it didn't work. Still, it was early days and it showed a lot of promise, so a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd check it out again. It definitely seems a lot more stable, now, and I'm probably using it and vanilla Firefox about 50/50. I like that it's got del.icio.us support built in, and I'm writing this using it's blog editor. I'll be cutting and pasting it into Notepad before hitting "publish", mind.* It's still a wee bit flakey, but it's getting better all the time.
Rolling up the world We got We Love Katamari the other day. I'm told it's not as good as the original, but as that was never released in the UK, and my PS2 isn't chipped, it'll do nicely. So much fun, even the Mrs can be persuaded to have a go. If the original is genuinely better I'm probably best not playing it in case I damage myself.
Trying to write Not very successfully.
Sleeping Very successfully.
Tomorrow we are off to Manchester for the weekend. While there, we will be seeing Calexico and Iron and Wine, who are both excellent, but mostly I'm just looking forward to being in a different place for a while, and I've never been to Manchester before. Hardly exotic, but any change of scenery is good.
Update - It did publish! It bombed immediately afterward, but it did publish.
Labels: diary, games, links, music
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this post