Let’s try that again
A pre-requisite of having something interesting to say is having an enriched life, and I now live close enough to Central London that I might be able to commit some of my fleeting musings to paper in a readable form.
I never really understood the geographical structure of London. How much of it is actually a city? Isn’t the whole of the inside of the M25 just called London? And there seems to be a London Town, as well as the City of London, as well as all the other bits lying around consisting of Boroughs? I still don’t understand London.
Last Wednesday I was having dinner with a friend at a Korean restaurant called Koba in Fitzrovia, and she picked up on my continuing referral to places such as Soho and South Bank being in the “City”. Apparently most of what I thought was in the City is actually commonly referred to as “London Town”, and I still have no idea how much of Greater London is called “London Town” after half-heartedly researching it on Wikipedia. I suppose this is what makes chaps from the Country side (or anywhere outside of London, really) stand out at pubs, but luckily I found out how big the City of London is before someone told me in a pub and I yelled “one mile my arse”.
I suppose that’s what much of the content in this blog will be about for the months to follow: my lack of knowledge and understanding of the greatest City Town significant urban development in the world. But it’s okay, because most people in London have never seen a horse before.
One does not simply de-list the Lord of the Rings
It took a while for me to even like Lord of the Rings. After two failed attempts to stay awake through the Fellowship, I finally made it through the theatrical cuts of all three films and really rather enjoyed it because stuff actually happens in the subsequent films. But this time… this time it was different.
I was bouncing off the walls with excitement at not just getting to give in to its splendour for 3 hours at a time, but to finally see just how awesome Gandalf’s beard is in 1080p, and hear Legolas firing arrows past my ears. As usual, I was not let down, at least not by the films. I was in fact let down by lovefilm: that Netflix style rental service, who are normally extremely good. I watched the Fellowship and the Two Towers, expecting Return of the King to turn up a couple of days later, but it didn’t. Instead the trilogy was delisted and I have no idea when I’ll get to see Return of the King in bluray 
With any other trilogy this would be fine, and I’d be able to deal with it, but watching the first two films without watching the third is like the middle part of a Fab ice lolly melting before you get to it. It’s not everyone’s favourite part of a Fab, but my god do you know if it’s missing. I’m having trouble reconciling this emptiness in my soul, but I simply can’t bring myself to watch it on DVD for fear of disappointment and lack of beard detail.
Taking control – grippers and slippers
Through playing Blur and Split/Second recently, the idea popped into my mind that there could be two fundamental kinds of game, and people who play them. Blur gives you complete control over what is happening, offering a way out of every eventuality as long as you are prepared for it. On the other hand we have Split/Second, where sometimes you just can’t get a grip on the situation, and all you can do is let it slip away.
I’m not yet going to try and determine what personality traits people who play one or the other have, because this idea might not even have a solid foundation, so for now I’m just going to try and separate the two and establish some definitions. I’m going to call them grippers and slippers, and hope that you can overlook any sexual innuendo.
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Still here, being cool
I’ve not lost my keyboard, but I’ve had frontal sinusitis since the weekend and it’s cripplingly painful all day and night, especially when I look at screens. Hopefully it will go away before I forget what I was going to write about next. It had something to do with Blur, Split/Second, and being in control. I think.
Female vocalists I quite like
Not the best, not the most original, and not the most interesting – except Regina Spektor, who is all of those – these are some female voices that I happen to like at the moment. Mostly because I’ve recently gotten back to listening to Symphonic Metal and it’s the vocals that carry that genre, and are perhaps all that separates it from Power Metal, but also because that’s just what I feel like listening to these days.
Buy CD. Put on shelf.
It’s a habit I’ve recently fallen into as a result of downloading music before I buy the CD. By the time the CD arrives I’ve already listened to it extensively so the CD goes on the shelf and stays there indefinitely whilst occasionally finding its way into my car. Now, this would actually happen anyway because I just do a 320k rip on my PC and maybe a console then put the CD on the shelf to collect dust.
Why am I so willing to do this when I already have the music on my PC? Rather than pose a bunch of questions and answer them in the next paragraph, I’m gonna’ say straight up that I probably do it to build a collection – and a bit of guilt, but mostly the collecting part. I’m proud of my collections, they illustrate diverse tastes and show that I’m selective about what I like. But the reason I think it’s important to have a collection is to share it with others, in the hope that any of my friends will casually browse through my CD collection, notice a band they’ve been meaning to listen to, and take the CD away with them to discover some new sounds.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, I am a terribly nice person, thanks for asking. You’re more than welcome to borrow a CD of mine, just so long as you don’t pretend you snapped it then be all like “Oh dude I snapped your CD. Do you want it back or shall I just throw it away”. Yeh, not falling for that one again you lanky, greasy haired hippie.
Loot, August 3rd 2010
Not much this week; the only 2 albums by Dutch symphonic metal band Delain; Lead Sails, Paper Anchor and Congregation of the Damned by Atreyu; and Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold who are one of the biggest names in metal at the moment. Unfortunately the second half of Nightmare is painfully uninspired and I’m already bored of listening to it. Atreyu is great for listening to in the car, and Delain at night because the lead singer, Charlotte Wessels, has a rather nice voice.
I think that’s about 30 CD’s since Christmas I’ve bought, which I did actually have to go back and double check because that’s rather a lot. Might even buy more if half of them didn’t turn up with cracked cases; thanks play.com
Putting the guitar back in Guitar Hero
In case you haven’t heard, I kinda like Guitar Hero and I’m not bad at it either. I used to play for hours a day just to get a high score, but I didn’t even buy World Tour or 5; to say I’ve become slightly disenfranchised since World Tour’s change in focus would be an understatement.
For a while now, I’ve felt that the series has lost any sense of direction other than following in Rock Bands footsteps and aiming for the expanded audience. It may have taken them a while, but Activision realised that differentiation is the only option the series had going for it, and the changes they’re making are certainly extensive.
Remember those pointless cut-scenes between each tier in the Guitar Hero games? No? That’s because they’re pointless. Now Neversoft have decided to change cut-scenes out for a ‘quest mode’. Unfortunately you don’t wander around with an axe looking for hipsters to cripple with your awesome metal riffs, but Neversoft have mentioned such things as characters with specific powers, and Gene Simmons doing something or other. To be honest I wasn’t really paying attention to Brian Bright when he went on about it because I don’t care what Gene Simmons is doing there, what I care about is how much rock and metal I will be able to enjoy in Guitar Hero’s next reinvention; the answer is looking like “quite a lot”.
The reason I want this kind of music in Guitar Hero is really pretty obvious, at least to anyone that has played as extensively as I have: some genres of music are not fun to play with a plastic guitar. It doesn’t matter how much you like electro indie pop, it’s not interesting to play on plastic or real guitars, and I’m sure fans of the genre would be the first to understate the importance of guitars in the music. With that in mind, Neversoft has taken genres which have always been the most fun to play in terms of pure gameplay, and built the game around that, because that’s what made it fun in the first place.
One might argue that this is a regression, and it’s retreading old ground by going back to its roots, but I’d rather see a series get back to what it’s good at and expand from there in a different direction. This might not be what everyone wants to hear, but at least Guitar Hero 6 and Rock Band 3 are now singing different tunes.
Moths are Scary
I have a new appreciation for my friend Steve’s fear of moths. Last night, I found one flapping around the kitchen and I pretty much just threw the dishes onto the island unit and legged it back out the door. Of course, the light was still on, I needed a drink, and I wanted a chocolate biscuit. Glaring with hesitation through the glass panels I waited for the moth to perch itself in a far corner of the room, and surely enough this would buy me enough time to switch the light off so I could run away and go to bed.
Today I had the intention of shooing it out the French doors into the garden, but I couldn’t find it. Not that I was looking for it, but for all the cups of Tea I made, not once did the moth emerge from its hiding place to bring death upon me with its unrelenting flap of doom. Assuming it had magically flown through the wall and outside, this evening I entered the kitchen safe in the knowledge that I would probably return to my desk alive with a cup of Tea for my courage. Yet somehow, having eluded me all day, the moth was flapping about again bumping into any given one of the ceiling spot lights in the kitchen.
I thought to myself “enough is enough”; I was done being oppressed by this menace when all I wanted to do was put the kettle on! I grabbed – although it was a bit more pathetic than that – a nearby jam jar and a bit of cardboard, and tiptoed as best a 6’1″ male can and trapped the little shit in the jam jar. Now, the next bit took real courage. I opened the back door, exposing myself to the many dangers of the New Forest, such as cunningly psychotic foxes, and rabbits with big pointy teeth: the harbinger of death. With one swift motion and a jump to safety in the other direction, I threw the moth out of the jar and retreated to safety without looking back. I couldn’t be sure if the moth had followed me or not, but it was a chance I had to take.
It has been several hours since this traumatic incident, and I’ve made several cups of Tea since then without feeling threatened. I’m not sure how this moth got into my home, though I imagine it was when I left one of the windows open all night with a light turned on. A potentially fatal mistake, that I shall never make again for as long as I shall live.
I Get a New bike! Hooray!
I was pretty much run over a few weeks ago and the stupid bitch wrote off my lovely brand new GT Outpost 2010 Disc hard tail mountain bike. It cost me £350 a number of weeks prior, and although cycling enthusiasts would no doubt exclaim this is an entry level bike, it was worth a lot to me. Thankfully the insurance company will be replacing it like for like with a brand spangly new one!
This is all well and good, except for the fact summer is beginning to disappear and fall from our grasp; so much for my intentions of cycling around the New Forest this year. It’s thoroughly annoying because this will hopefully be the last summer I spend here before I go to some urban city where I’ll be run over much more often, but not before my bike gets nicked anyway.
Ultimately all I’ve lost is time, which wouldn’t usually bother me but I’m starting to realise how valuable it is, how much I’ve wasted, and how quickly it’s slipping away.
