Enlightenment through Cheap Electronic Goods

This is the FM3 Buddha Machine

...or more correctly the Buddha Machine v2.0 which I purchased from Cargo.

At the most base level it's an electronic box which holds 9 ambient sound loops. Or if you want to be a bit more open-minded about things: it as a unique way to deliver an album of ambient music, giving the listener control of how long to play the loops for along with the pitch that the loop is played.

I've been playing with it this evening and I'm impressed, there is something wonderfully raw about the whole thing. It's very "plastic-y", and the speaker is very easy to overdrive but these things just add to the charm. The music itself is very well constructed, plenty of pleasant string instrumentation and nicely looped so you can get all transcendental if so desired.

If you are intrigued by this very short report then I suggest heading over to the FM3 site where there are plenty of interesting links including mp3s of all the loops and even a link to an iPhone application...

FM3 Buddha Machine

Packaging done right

I liked this enough to buy one, reminded me of the product placement in Repo Man.

Time to admit defeat - Part 1

I've been saying for the past few months that when this happens to my 'daily treats', I'll give up...

How to play Guitar Hero properly

IMAGE_162
Originally uploaded by darthphil

Add one bottle of red wine and a real guitar into the mix.

\m/ !!!!!!

Left Hand Drive

We have a certain degree of gallows humour were I work - which I can see getting worse if people keep disappearing off BLOODY TRAVELLING!!!

I do play some strange games

W...


T...


F...?!


*sigh* It's as close as I get these days...

Spam Baiting

I need this hoodie:


It's not a matter of liking or desiring this hoodie - if I owned it my life would be one step closer to being complete - I would be one step closer to nirvana. It is THAT important.

Unfortunately the Mark Ecko shop won't ship items to Europe, so I am now formally inviting applications from any spambots to bombard my junk mail folder with alternative online stores with more progressive shipping policies.

Here is the link to the item: Star Wars Fett For Real Hoodie By Marc Ecko

Thank you for your time.

Ever had the feeling someone is trying to tell you something?

change my routine indeed... was the swearing necessary though?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as observed through incredibly geeky facebook applications - a case study

Patient tries to deny disorder by choosing a name with a description diametrically opposite to his attitude to the application. Also note the title of the last adventure, medical staff recommend patient is closely monitored for the next few sessions:


Patient now changes character to one with a description denying his current state of mind:


Fun? :-|

Couldn't agree more...

Monthly Update

New Phone purchased: ✔
Grand Theft Auto IV completed: ✔ (well... the storyline anyway)
About ready to pack in work: ✔

That's about it...

Bit obsessed with this at the moment:



The trailer is a classic example of how to get me interested in a videogame - pick an interesting soundtrack and Boom! I'm interested.

Also helps if the games looks (and you can put this on the poster) "fucking beautiful", appears to play a bit like Ico, and has a female sidekick who looks like Natalie Portman. I really hope the game is as good as it looks...

Best message from an on-line store - evah!

We shall now embark upon our ceremonial shipping ritual to ensure that you receive your product in a timely fashion! Indeed, we feel we have to warn you that upon receiving your order, you may be moved to tears by the sheer joy of it all.

From this site incidently

Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust

To show our gratitude to you for your support in ordering the Deluxe
Edition we want you to become a part of it. We are going to credit you and
all the people who have purchased the Deluxe Edition so far by listing your
name in the book. That way you will become part of this unique document.

- Sigur Rós

What can I say, thank you for mention... and thank you for the album so far

My Next Phone

I've done a post like this before, and I'm man enough to admit I was wrong about that phone, but this time I think I'm on to something.

Ladies & Gentlemen, my next phone:

There is something vaguely sinister about it, which I thoroughly approve of! Proper details over here if you are interested in this sort of thing.

Life lessons in three panels

I love this comic...











So much better without the cat.

Heavy Metal Home Furnishing

I'm currently on an enforced Grand Theft Auto IV sabbatical due to self-induced RSI, so before we get back to that subject let me show you one of my recent purchases, behold the Heavy Metal pillow case!


Completely pointless and OK, it's not really metal what with being bright pink and merchandise for a band who aren't really metal (you can listen to their new album here, try to see if you can work out a categorization - I'm inclined to put them in the "very good" category).

It was ordered from Hydra Head Records (along with the CD from aforementioned band) and it has an animal skull on the front and we all know that animal skulls are the preserve of only one sort of music...

Tourism

Yes I'm at that stage of Grand Theft Auto - ignoring the story and looking for weird crap... and Ricky Gervais.

Things that suck, and things that don't suck - part whatever

Let's start with something that sucks:

Leicester being relegated into the third tier of the English Football league for the first time in over 100 years

Yes I know I'm a crap football fan: I don't own a season ticket, I don't get pissed every other weekend and spend my time in the company of thousands of other like minded fans, I follow Leicester in a way that could be described as 'ambient' at times - through a brief few seconds of reporting on Sky Sports News here and there, or through hopelessly optimistic Leicester supporting websites - by all rights I shouldn't care.

But I do, and watching them go down to the delight of a pub full of Coventry City fans was pretty much the least fun thing I've witnessed this year...

Things that didn't suck? This:


A brand new, completely free (both financially and guilt speaking) Nine Inch Nails album. It's ace, and you can download it in a variety of formats here.

todo.txt

I have a text file on the desktop of my laptop at home (well embedded into it using Samurize as I like to show off my geek credentials occasionally) called todo.txt. For the past few weeks all it has said is "dry clean suit, play Lost Odyssey."

The suit thing is fair enough, it needs cleaning - but what is Lost Odyssey and why play it? Well, it's a Japanese role playing game for the XBox360: it tells a story about a thousand year old immortal character, was produced by some of the minds behind the Final Fantasy series and spans a story crossing 4 DVDs. It's very nice to look at, has some good old fashioned turn based RPG mechanics (which I like - I'm old, sue me!), and a pretty good story for most parts.

Sixty hours of game play later and I'm done, you would think I'd want a rest after that, but oh no! I have two little problems: Number one is the back log of over a dozen unfinished games that normally squats accusingly under my TV,but looming large (quite literally) over all of those is this beast of a game:


I may be some time...

BORIS, definitely the capitalised version...

The above picture is from Wednesday night,

Support was from Growing whom I'm still not sure what to make of - they made some interesting sounds, but I was a bit thrown by the fact that I couldn't work out how the actions they performed on stage related to the noises I heard. Have a look at this video to see what I mean.

Boris went down the more traditional route, which is fine by me. \m/

The most god awful picture you will see of Portishead, ever!

The headline is another example of what I like to call a 'lie', I have far worse pictures on my phone...

So, I went to see Portishead last night (ner, ner ner! he said making silly faces in your general direction). The support act was great, if you like East European folk music - and accordians... hmm.

Portishead were... comfortable. I think that describes them best, still trying to warm to the new material, it does seem to miss a certain je ne sais quoi. I think it may be the lack of slightly psychotic obsessing over lost love that I'm just not getting from the new album.

Anyway, can't be bothered to describe it in detail so why not have a look at some more crap pictures of said gig over here.

Lies & porn

I will update my website regularly and I won't make a big song and dance about a swanky new redesign then let it stagnate for at least a month. Pah!

Anyway, about those pornographic comic books:

The book is called Lost Girls written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Melinda Gebbie, it comes (fnar) in 3 volumes, and according to Wikipedia: "Lost Girls is an erotic graphic novel depicting the sexual adventures of three important female fictional characters of the late 19th and early 20th century".

I've got my hands on it as I'm, well - not a fan as such, but someone who recognises Alan Moore as one of the most important writers in the comic book industry, plus due to the nature of the content you have to snap this book up quick before it gets banned.

So what do I think of it? Well, I'm not sure - the language does seem a bit "Ooh more tea vicar! Don't mind if I do" etc, but with more reference to orifices, and the story is maybe a bit thin if you take all of the incessant shagging away.

As a piece of pornography I'm not sure about it either, probably due to over exposure of the internet - I mean, we've all seen pretty much everything that is to be seen haven't we? Or maybe because there are some fairly distasteful elements to the story (incest, bestiality it's all here!), or maybe I'm just not into comic book characters shagging.

However as an objet d'art I think it's fantastic. Each panel is painted beautifully, the books themselves are proper hardback editions with dust covers painted like old children's books and the three volumes come in a nice sturdy box.

...

And now I've just realised I've resorted to talking about the box that, possibly one of the most groundbreaking pieces of comic book work, comes in. I'm giving up now! Have a read of what Neil Gaiman wrote about Lost Girls, it's a much better read.

darthphil.com 2008 - a user's guide

So, at least someone has noticed the new design. I thought I'd do a quick post to explain some of the intracies of the new layout, there may be a couple of tricks worth stealing...

First things first, the 'crap all over the floor' background image - I've had that idea stuck in my head for some time but had difficulty getting a decent image using the constraints of only ever using a camera phone. Although it would be nice to say the image is one which carefully describes the complexity of my moods I think what it is really showing is a sad indictment that my life can be reduced to the contents of a hard drive, an ipod and a couple of game controllers. Then again, it could just be a pleasant background image...

I've kept the flickr badges as I think they are quite a nice touch, if you are into your HTML and CSS I've added a very subtle filter/opacity effect to tone down the brightness along with the worlds most subtle drop down shadow effect. The drop down around the main blog is a complete cheat by the way, have a look at the background image if you are interested in this sort of thing.

As for navigation, well as you may have noticed there isn't one! Let's be honest, I don't update this site enough for it to merit one, plus according to the stats most people just drop in to read the front page. If for some reason you do need to find an old post there is a fairly unusable search box for you to play with in the top right corner.

I've kept a few links to other parts of the internet where I maintain a presence, I think most people are net savvy enough to recognise the icons (incidently, for the web developers out there, I've tried using the CSS opacity effect to produce a sort of mouse over effect - and yes, I know - it doesn't work in Internet Explorer). If you are someone who is frustrated by the lack of updates on this site you may want to keep an eye on my youtube and del.icio.us pages.

OK, I think that's enough for now. Next on the agenda: either pornographic comic books or more reason why my taste in music rules!

Hmm...

Seems like there is something different at darthphil.com

Amsterdam, sans tulips

I've finally got round to uploading my pictures of last weekend's jaunt to Amsterdam, don't worry all pictures of 'herbal' cigarettes have been removed (although there does seem to be a few damaged rizla packets hanging around) so everyone should be able to keep their jobs.

Here is the link to the flickr set.

Jesus loves you... maybe a bit too much.

So very wrong... So very funny.

I am working on a new site design for what it's worth - a leaner, meaner one with a slightly more relevant background image to reflect my lifestyle (the current car thing came from a brief Forza 2 obsession, which is very much over). So, there is the possibilty that these silly little posts will stop soon and be replaced with some good old fashioned procrastinating - watch this space I guess...

This one is going out for the Arvo Pärt massive

live recording of Stars of the Lid playing Arvo Parts "FRATRES"
recorded in Utrecht, the Netherlands(DEC.2008)

...that could quite easily move me towards religion

Wisdom

If McDonald's "Happy Meals" are named after the emotional state children experience while consuming them, shouldn't the adult versions be called "Self-Loathing Meals"?

I didn't think of that btw, this chap did.

Beautiful, isn't it?

The reason why I will buy a PS3 at some point...

Namco have decided to put Star Wars characters into the next Soul Calibur game, Yoda is in the XBox 360 version and Vader is in the PS3 version and you know which side of that fence I reside on.

More info and some fairly funny fanboy comments here.