Roll up! Roll up! Get 'em while there hot! Bumper family sized bunch of picture from last night's shenanigans are now up...



And yes I do have the new Harry Potter book, but I haven't read much because I've been reading the new Lucifer comic book which I highly recommend.

I've just been reading the latest Matrix Reloaded theory over at the Matrix Essays site and it's giving me a headache. It's not the "Matrix over here, Reality over hear, Neo/Agent Smith both having shaky grasp of reality"-theory, or the nested reality theory; it's something else, which according to the comments section on the site is to do with existentialism.



Anyway it's giving me The Fear, so I started reading this instead... it's funny.

I guess it's as gentle a start to the footy season that the Foxes are going to get, Southampton at home. Anyway crappy, but at least complete, fixture list can be found here, but the BBC website will probably sort itself out soon with a better one.

taking the piss...?



AFX - Smojphace EP

Another piss take from The Aphex twin - I kind of wish he'd stop doing this. Three tracks on this EP, the first one is a remix of The Bug's 'Run the place red' which is excellent - the basic feel of the track is kept in place but the hyperactivity is turned up a fair few notches, the second two tracks are shite. Titled Ktpa1 and Ktpa2 they are basically the sound of the Aphex Twin wanking over one of his home made synths. Don't get me wrong I like a bit of noise in my music, Mogwai do it beautifully, I can totally appreciate the stuff Fushitsusha does (even though I've only got a couple of his tracks), and some of the Jazz stuff I've got can descend into what could be defined as noise (I've got this John Coltrane live CD which due to the low quality of the recording can get pretty chaotic) - but this is just boring and dull. Maybe if he'd stuck to one short track it would have raised a grin, but two is just stretching my patience a little too much... Still as I've mentioned the first track is really good, even if technically it isn't his.

Here's a little something for anyone who likes old skool videogames and whose drugs aren't quite up to the job anymore. Go over here, click games and download tsunami 2010, a slightly dodgy version of Tempest 2K. Top stuff...

Right, pictures from footy tournament and the carnage that followed are now up - if someone else could stick a match report in the comments section that would be grand cos 24 is on now and I can't be arsed...

In about an hours time I'm mean't to be playing football - obviously a quiet night before hand would have been a good idea... oh dear oh dear oh dear

What do you reckon? I've tidied the place up a bit, dumped the google search box and put in a few hyperlinks... and I've now just realised that I'm stating the blindingly obvious, well! it's Friday and too hot and sunny for me to think properly. Anyway opinions and ideas for links may or may not be welcomed - it depends on my mood.



And speaking of Friday, time to join the growing ranks of people who use the Friday Five as a handy way to fill up there web pages. So here we go:



1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have?

the sleazy answer involves two willing ladies and a very dirty imagination, the non-sleazy answer... that's do-able? it would have to involve being in a band.



2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?

fairly, but I can be a little under enthusiastic so it can be difficult to tell.



3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened?

yes, and nothing...



4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?

big fuck off clue: "That's no moon. It's a space station."



5. What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted?

at the moment it's to be able to complete Ikargua on hard level...

GOD-DAMN MOTHER-FUCKING COMMENTS!!!



Sorry, had to get that out of my system. OK, comments upgraded to pro-version... Did that fix the javascript problem? Did it bollocks! So, I'm now using the cheeky little anti-javascript workaround. This means two things: first up all you'll see now is a link which says comments...?, rather than something useful: like if anybody has actually made any comments, and secondly it will open up in a weird sized window - this is because I can't be bothered to work out the javascript to open it the original size, I've just used a target="_new" property in the link. I'd like to say this is temporary, but who knows...



Anyway, some updates: the CD section gets's updated pretty frequently at the moment - I appear to have an addiction to CD's that is only marginally cheaper than crack cocaine. I'm going to have to redo the banner code soon since the dodgy javascript will only cope with 36 entries - oh and thanks to CrOaKeR for explaining the lemon one to me, I honestly did that without realising there was a reason for it, I think my sub-concious mind decided to take up the driving seat when I was doing that one - which is slightly worrying, next stop schizophrenia! Oh, and I'm amazed there haven't been any lewd comments about bunnies.



Finally someone else I know has decided to delve into the world of blogging, and he will so appreciate me putting this link up... (stage directions: wrap dark sinister cloak round self, walk backwards out of room chuckling in an evil fashion, try to avoid tripping up...)

faith in music restored



Mogwai - Happy Songs for Happy People

You know I think they've finally done it, the perfect Mogwai album, I have no idea how they are going to top this one. There last album, Rock Action, was good but at times got a bit too... ordinary I guess; but this one just soars above that both musically and emotionally, personally I don't think there is a bad song on it. The title is a lie though, it sin't a particularly happy album - in fact I have a feeling the song "I know you are but what am I?" is going to become a bit of a theme tune to alot of people's lonely nights. Anyway, overall opinion: fucking glorious.



Spring Heel Jack - Live

The memories come flooding back - I saw Spring Heel Jack and the associated jazz musicians on this CD play live sometime in January at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, that event has to go down as one of the greatest gigs/concerts I have witnessed. This CD contains a live recording from the same tour, although this was recorded in Brighton, I'm quite surprised how similar it sounds to what I heard in London. Anyway what do you get here? Well, two tracks, each documenting one half of the perfomance, it displays moments of complete unbridled noise, and moments of pure beauty, sometimes both at the same time - I really don't know how to describe it, it's not really jazz, not really electronica - saying that it's somewhere inbetween doesn't really do it justice. I'm just glad that there are groups brave enough to create this sort of music...

Yes I know about the javascript problem, it looks like the website hosting the comments section is having problems. You can get round it by refreshing the page a few times, hopefully this is only temporary...

...bad choice?



Evenesence - Fallen

OK, sometimes I fuck up... It doesn't take much, a catchy number one single, a cute goth chick on the front of the album and a bunch of glowing user reviews on Amazon and Boom!! I'll lap up any old crap. So anyway, this is horribly overblown - so much so it's not even funny; and were as I was expecting them to add something to the traditional metal formula (sort of like the nu-metal likes of Linkin Park and Korn do), they seem to have gone backwards... Not very good



Metallica - St Anger

My god they are angry... There have been some reviews that say how this harks back to the Master of Puppets era Metallica, I'm not sure about that - although on the surface the comparision is some what true, ie loud, fast and long songs, but this album seems a lot rawer. It's difficult to give a proper impression on it at the moment since the songs just try to bludgeon you into submission mainly - quite a painful album to listen to really. I think I like it...

When you find yourself at 5am in the morning, in the middle of the road, your hangover is just kicking in, you've run out of cigarettes and you are suffering from mild sleep depravation I think it's time to start asking yourself some deep searching questions about the way your life is going... enjoy the pictures.

Well, it's Friday afternoon, time to don the smoking jacket, pour a generous brandy and raid the B3ta newsletter for links. So first up, I did mention goths earlier - here's another one, except he's a kangeroo, next up a little trivia for people who remember the ZX Spectrum, doesn't look like I remember it that well - I got as far as millions... This is great, if you remember weebles, and finally if I ever get off my arse and start having a go at making a few tunes again, this is so going to get sampled...

Crap... just when I though I'd cured my Star Wars Lego addiction, an advert for this turns up in my inbox.



OK, I'm declaring today to be Metal Day because of the two CD's that turned up in my post this morning, and because I'm wearing fair amount of black clothing - no sweat band though...



So what CD's have I got? Well first off let's have a traditional two-finger devil-sign salute for the new Metallica album, I haven't listened to it all yet, but from what I've heard so far it's back to basics metal, all chugging guitars and double bass drums - seems pretty good to me. The second one up is the new album by Evanesence, now before rushing to the comments section to scream abuse at my Nu-metal taste in music, can I just say: I liked the single, and they have a cute goth chick on vocals... So fuck you!



By the way, I was doing a search for cute goth chicks for the last bit, and found this - it is fucking priceless!

After a day of trawling through far too many videogame sites, music sites and spending far too long looking at the beta competition entries, it's good to stumble on a site like this. Very relaxing.



Anyway, updates: few CD's that may interest people, and I got the Animatrix today, I've got back into the whole Matrix thing now so I quite enjoyed this, it's much better watching the DVD rather than a tiny quicktime video. Highlights in my opinion are The Second Renaissance Parts I & II, which genuinely shocked me in some places, and Kid's Story.

not more!



Marilyn Manson - The Golden Age of The Grotesque

Business as usual for Mr Manson, wholesome fun for all the family. This CD ranks as just about OK in my view, Mobscene is quite good fun with it's cheer leader chorus and I do like the short film that comes on the extra DVD is good, but the rest of it just hasn't sunk in yet



!!! - Me and Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard

Apparently you pronounce there name as three identical short sounds, very interesting band. There an eight piece group who do a very fine line in punk-ish, new wave-esque psychedelia - I'm at a loss to explain what they are doing on Warp records. This EP only has 2 songs, but each clocks in at about 9 minutes long - I get the feeling that seeing them live would be something a bit special



Dan Greenpeace & DJ Yoda - Unthugged

DJ Yoda returns, this time with Dan Greenpeace, to generally take the piss out of hip-hop. Apparently his next record is an 80's tribute - can't wait!



Various - Nice Up The Dance

My excursions into the wonderful world of dancehall and ragga continues, although with a hip-hop twist. There's two basic concepts here, either hip hop MC's over a reggae beat, or toasting over a hip hop beat. This compilation makes a change from the other Soul Jazz releases I've got in that it seems to have quite recent release... Sean Paul ring any bells? And I didn't think I'd ever own a CD with a tune featuring Shaggy that I could take seriously but I do now.

This can't be a good idea...