Noticed yet another new Aerosmith compilation in the record shops, humorously titled The Very Best Of, which has apparently been out for a few months now...and what utter balls it is. They've tacked on two genuine seventies classics (Dream On and Sweet Emotion) to an otherwise relentless trawl through a parade of nineties MOR bilge that makes even their eighties MTV bilge look a fine vintage in comparison.
Hilariously/tragically, they've even seen fit to include all of that little run of (s)hit singles where, as my old mate iKon pointed out at the time, they seemed to be releasing the same fucking song again and again with merely a slightly modified chorus to help us tell 'em apart from each other (Cryin', Jaded, Crazy, and Amazing if you must know). Terrible, soul destroying mush, hate it all. What's almost as awful is the inclusion of the Run DMC version of Walk This Way in place of their own original version. Don't get me wrong, that probably is the better version of the two but, FFS, on your own frigging hits compilation ? Jeez, would Led Zep have put that Puff Daddy atrocity cover of Kashmir on Remasters instead of their own original? Two chances of that, mate, and slim just left town. Shocking, absolutely shocking. Naw, I'm not buying it, either figuratively or literally. This might just be the point where the Aero boys have finally choked on Satan's scaly pecker. What a waste.
Made with the help of -
Aerosmith's Greatest Hits - I still can't believe how good this is. Back In The Saddle, Kings And Queens, Walkin' In The Sand, priceless slabs of old skool rawk magic at every turn. And that was back when they were hoovering Bolivian marching powder up their collective hooters by the ton. A few years after they hit rehab, they end up hitting us with Don't Want To Miss A Fucking Thing. The moral of this story : just say yes, kids...
Saturday 30 December 2006
Wednesday 27 December 2006
Yippee-Ki-Yay ! Uncle Mex's Movies of 2006
Hey-ho, it's that time of year again when I decide to bore all lurkers out there with my opinions on the best popular culture offerings I've seen this year (BTW, listing the sight of that lovely neighbour in the altogether almost counted as my favourite art installation but I've resisted the temptation to include it). Anyhoo, I'm kicking off with my favourite films of the year - it could have been a top fifty given that I'm in there every bloody week but seeing as I'm not being paid for this shit, let's press on with a top five. Disappointingly mainstream list this year as well but the indies did absolutely zip for me so fully deserve the dustbin of historical ignominy (Little Miss Sunshine, The Squid and the Whale for just two of 'em - double order of meh with meh on the side). Anyhoo, let's get on with it. The best five. Erm, that I can remember at any rate. Not in any order either.
1. Casino Royale - If Dan Craig actually had a face like a welders bench, it would be better than the one he's got now. That's a good thing, BTW. He looks like a proper hard bastard and it wasn't a stretch to see him seriously knock seven shades out of generic heavies the way it was with old Remington Steele in the tux. And they binned the invisible f***ing Aston as well, thank Geezer.
2. Enron : The Smartest Guys in the Room - Don't know if this was a 2006 movie but I saw it this year so it's going in. Sensational documentary, among the best I've ever seen. Not much else to say. Beautifully made, funny and very frightening.
3. Pan's Labyrinth - As good as everyone says it is. Bizarre, glorious shotgun wedding of, erm, Hellboy and Land and Freedom. But better, much better, than that sounds. Words don't do it justice so I'll STFU save for recommending it wholeheartedly.
4. Superman Returns - Yup, I did like this one. The lad Routh did a good job channelling the great Mr Reeve, it was all put together with a grand, old school look about it, and it genuinely felt like a real Superman movie. Hope this re-starts the franchise. Please.
5. A Scanner Darkly - Probably the most faithful PKD adaptation ever to make the cut (though I'd still like to see that Gilliam Ubik fanboy fantasy come to life). Jeez, I think Keanu is finally getting the message. Minimalism. Don't act, you can't. Play it all down. Just be yourself as a starter. If you've got nothing else in the locker (news just in, no you haven't) stick with the simplicity. Given that old Bob Arctor is a total stoner, that ain't a stretch for you Bill so don't sweat it. Following Constantine, that's two in a row of his I've managed to sit through without wanting to fly over to LA and gouge his f***ing eyes out. Good work fella.
Oh, and BTW the sainted Noni is in this as well and is obviously gorgeous, wonderful and worthy of some kind of award - I'd certainly give her one (oh dear, have I said something wrong ?)
Right, that's enough from me. City of God is about to come on telly. Anyways, joy of joys, my favourite albums list for 2006 will be right up shortly! Yes, be still your beating f***king hearts.
1. Casino Royale - If Dan Craig actually had a face like a welders bench, it would be better than the one he's got now. That's a good thing, BTW. He looks like a proper hard bastard and it wasn't a stretch to see him seriously knock seven shades out of generic heavies the way it was with old Remington Steele in the tux. And they binned the invisible f***ing Aston as well, thank Geezer.
2. Enron : The Smartest Guys in the Room - Don't know if this was a 2006 movie but I saw it this year so it's going in. Sensational documentary, among the best I've ever seen. Not much else to say. Beautifully made, funny and very frightening.
3. Pan's Labyrinth - As good as everyone says it is. Bizarre, glorious shotgun wedding of, erm, Hellboy and Land and Freedom. But better, much better, than that sounds. Words don't do it justice so I'll STFU save for recommending it wholeheartedly.
4. Superman Returns - Yup, I did like this one. The lad Routh did a good job channelling the great Mr Reeve, it was all put together with a grand, old school look about it, and it genuinely felt like a real Superman movie. Hope this re-starts the franchise. Please.
5. A Scanner Darkly - Probably the most faithful PKD adaptation ever to make the cut (though I'd still like to see that Gilliam Ubik fanboy fantasy come to life). Jeez, I think Keanu is finally getting the message. Minimalism. Don't act, you can't. Play it all down. Just be yourself as a starter. If you've got nothing else in the locker (news just in, no you haven't) stick with the simplicity. Given that old Bob Arctor is a total stoner, that ain't a stretch for you Bill so don't sweat it. Following Constantine, that's two in a row of his I've managed to sit through without wanting to fly over to LA and gouge his f***ing eyes out. Good work fella.
Oh, and BTW the sainted Noni is in this as well and is obviously gorgeous, wonderful and worthy of some kind of award - I'd certainly give her one (oh dear, have I said something wrong ?)
Right, that's enough from me. City of God is about to come on telly. Anyways, joy of joys, my favourite albums list for 2006 will be right up shortly! Yes, be still your beating f***king hearts.
Sunday 24 December 2006
Paradise Deferred
I had hoped to be regaling you with tales of fun and adventure on the shoot-em-up coding front but I have hit a wee bit of a brick wall. The plan was to get the latest version of PyGame (1.8) for use with Python 2.5 and get started on the basic initial application framework but, unfortunately, it hasn't quite been released for download yet (despite their web site news claiming it has...) and version 1.7 doesn't seem to work with Python 2.5 :-(
I could have rolled back to Python 2.4 and started work in earnest with that but I've already installed and setup the current version and my Eclipse / PyDev combo is working nicely with it... so I've decided that I'll just have to wait...Could be waiting a wee while, too, as the rest of the bloody world seems to be celebrating some big religious event or other at the minute :-/
Anyhoo, I am still really looking forward to getting properly started - even bought myself a lovely Python book the other day which is a damn good read, er, as these things go...
Made with the help of -
Chopin "Favourite Piano Works" (Vladimar Ashkenazy) - Tell you what, music lovers, Fantaisie-Impromptu op. 66 is a long standing favourite of mine and I'm 90% sure it was the main theme tune from an old horizontal scrolling arcade shooter that I used to play down in Electronic Experience...but I will be buggered if I can remember the name of the f***er. Pretty sure it was from Konami, it was well post the R-Type era, and it had plenty of fancy parallax, some vertical scrolling parts and even some right-to-left sections. A wee sub-project of mine for the new year is to get the name of this one - answers on a postcard please.
I could have rolled back to Python 2.4 and started work in earnest with that but I've already installed and setup the current version and my Eclipse / PyDev combo is working nicely with it... so I've decided that I'll just have to wait...Could be waiting a wee while, too, as the rest of the bloody world seems to be celebrating some big religious event or other at the minute :-/
Anyhoo, I am still really looking forward to getting properly started - even bought myself a lovely Python book the other day which is a damn good read, er, as these things go...
Made with the help of -
Chopin "Favourite Piano Works" (Vladimar Ashkenazy) - Tell you what, music lovers, Fantaisie-Impromptu op. 66 is a long standing favourite of mine and I'm 90% sure it was the main theme tune from an old horizontal scrolling arcade shooter that I used to play down in Electronic Experience...but I will be buggered if I can remember the name of the f***er. Pretty sure it was from Konami, it was well post the R-Type era, and it had plenty of fancy parallax, some vertical scrolling parts and even some right-to-left sections. A wee sub-project of mine for the new year is to get the name of this one - answers on a postcard please.
Friday 15 December 2006
I know what you did last, um, Winter...
Yes, it's that time of year again when I go into hibernation away from the day job for a few weeks and generally get involved in a wee project or two, like that appalling little Columns game (left) that I wrote a couple of years back (tho' I do maintain that the gfx were f***in' ace, iKon, if you're lurking). This kind of thing keeps my old geeky underbelly bubbling away nicely while I'm away from my desk and also allows the pleasant exploration of some new tech goodies I'm interested in looking at. That's my cover story for what it's worth.So...this year I'm playing with Python (oo-er, chance would be a fine thing missus) and the PyGame modules. Why ? Well, I've done the Delphi DirectX thing and it was fun but I really want to stay a little bit more platform agnostic in case I ever want to get it working on Linux or OS X (stop that tittering at the back). People have mentioned XNA to me but I would rather disembowel myself with a blunt coat hook. Could have went back to Allegro with C but that would have been a dull re-tracing of steps and I really can't be arsed working in DOS again. Not after binning the old P133 at any rate. Nah, Python it is.
This year I'm having a go at doing a little sideways scrolling blaster. Really always wanted to do one for a long time anyways but got myself some further inspiration from playing Gradius V on the PS2 at the Game On festival the other day - not a great game playability-wise compared with the old, classic arcade or SNES versions but I liked their whole attempt at bolting new graphic techniques into the bog-standard 2D side on format of old without messing with the basics. Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself here - if I get one layer of pseudo parallax scrolling going then I'll be pissing myself laughing...but, anyway...
I've got Eclipse and PyDev working okay, just waiting on the imminent release of PyGame for Python 2.5 next week - I may even do something silly like start designing the bloody thing in the meantime (!!!).
Slainte Mhath and keep watching the skies.
Made with the help of -
1. Bleak and Destroyed doom metal compilation - Tonight, Matthew, we're going to be Black Sabbath (certainly gets my phone vote, every time)
2. Yet more Plan B compilation CD stuff...all good gear so far.
Wednesday 13 December 2006
Postcard from Big Smoke
I was in London for a couple of days this week and rather splendid it was too. Not going to go the whole Judith Chalmers hog, paint myself orange and give you some sordid blow by blow account of all sights seen but I will share just a few of my own little, erm, idiosyncratic observations...
1. Went to the Game On festival at the Science Museum, a celebration of computer gaming all the way through from the very old school Spacewar to the likes of the very nu-skool Gears of War with plenty of detours in between across the whole space time continuum. A beautiful concept, to my jaded eyes, not to be missed. Anyhoo, the big man is very much an old school chappy and was a tad more excited about seeing a PDP-1(!) in the flesh than in any of this hi-def polygon shifting bilge they are shoving down the collective throats of the gaming public at the minute, so... I spent my time playing Missile Command, Galaxians, Galaga and Moon Cresta! And bloody Xevious! Yes, all original old arcade machines with the coin mechanism re-jigged to give free infinite credits. Glorious, just what the doctor ordered (okay, they had R-Type there in PlayStation form with that blasted, unnatural three-button compromise thingy for a control set - fucking philistines! - so it was a bit less than perfect but still...).
The also had a listening post with a jukebox of old music from the 8 and 16 bit days including plenty from the main man, Lord Tim of Follin. Almost brought a tear to the big man's eye hearing that LED Storm title theme burbling away again - BTW, the YM plug-in writer for WinAmp really deserves our eternal thanks. Anyways, before I hit the road I got a wee look at the three next gen consoles which were set-up on display with folks showing them off. Brave new world, eh ? Meh. The offerings from Sony and the beast of Redmond both showed off some very pretty hi-def gfx on the various big telly's but they certainly didn't blow my socks off in any shape or form - the games still looked to me like the same old tedious pains in the tits the way 99% of the rot from the post SNES / MegaDrive era are. Besides all that, Bill G's boys ain't getting one thin dime from me (evil fucks that they are) whilst the Sony DRM house can bite my shiny metal butt if they think I'm subsidizing any more of that nonsense. The Wii looked the best bet and I was slightly moved by it - at least the big N aren't trying secure their "platform" as some kind of "media hub" and all that marketroid bilge - it is a pure games machine. Always been a little bit of a Nintendo fanboi but ultimately even the Wii didn't really do it for me either - certainly not with the UK price being the usual rip-off Britain guff. Ho-hum. The moths living in the old wallet are safe for yet another year.
2. Caught the new-ish play Frost/Nixon at the Gielgud theatre later on in the evening, with Michael Sheen and Frank Langella as the two protagonists. That man Sheen is one helluva good actor, way more than just a mimic - to my eyes he captured Frosty as a man above and beyond any hoary old "Hello, good evening and welcome" Bremnerism schtick. He maybe even upped his game beyond those (double) Blair and Kenneth Williams efforts on the goggle box. Good work, fella. Langella was also pretty damn top drawer as Nixon - real gravitas. Yes, a good show all told. Oh, and Salman Rushdie was in the audience, a few seats away from me in the Dress Circle. Really. No, really. No bodyguards or anything. Might have been a doppelganger but I am 99% sure that it wasn't. Got as much right as anyone else to be there, of course, but still a bit odd to see him out among the living. I did briefly estimate potential suicide bomb blast radius but assessed that I was safe and watched the play in a peaceful frame of mind...
3. Regent's Park really rules. Very quiet during the week and beautifully maintained. There must be something in this global warming malarkey because London was again really sunny and mild - even Uncle Mex felt obliged to give his chrome dome an airing in deference to the pleasant weather. I have always liked London, I still really do. Don't know if I'd live there, tho'.
Made with the help of - mash-up of selections from recent Plan B issues. Lovely. Especially Dosh. Super dear, super.
1. Went to the Game On festival at the Science Museum, a celebration of computer gaming all the way through from the very old school Spacewar to the likes of the very nu-skool Gears of War with plenty of detours in between across the whole space time continuum. A beautiful concept, to my jaded eyes, not to be missed. Anyhoo, the big man is very much an old school chappy and was a tad more excited about seeing a PDP-1(!) in the flesh than in any of this hi-def polygon shifting bilge they are shoving down the collective throats of the gaming public at the minute, so... I spent my time playing Missile Command, Galaxians, Galaga and Moon Cresta! And bloody Xevious! Yes, all original old arcade machines with the coin mechanism re-jigged to give free infinite credits. Glorious, just what the doctor ordered (okay, they had R-Type there in PlayStation form with that blasted, unnatural three-button compromise thingy for a control set - fucking philistines! - so it was a bit less than perfect but still...).
The also had a listening post with a jukebox of old music from the 8 and 16 bit days including plenty from the main man, Lord Tim of Follin. Almost brought a tear to the big man's eye hearing that LED Storm title theme burbling away again - BTW, the YM plug-in writer for WinAmp really deserves our eternal thanks. Anyways, before I hit the road I got a wee look at the three next gen consoles which were set-up on display with folks showing them off. Brave new world, eh ? Meh. The offerings from Sony and the beast of Redmond both showed off some very pretty hi-def gfx on the various big telly's but they certainly didn't blow my socks off in any shape or form - the games still looked to me like the same old tedious pains in the tits the way 99% of the rot from the post SNES / MegaDrive era are. Besides all that, Bill G's boys ain't getting one thin dime from me (evil fucks that they are) whilst the Sony DRM house can bite my shiny metal butt if they think I'm subsidizing any more of that nonsense. The Wii looked the best bet and I was slightly moved by it - at least the big N aren't trying secure their "platform" as some kind of "media hub" and all that marketroid bilge - it is a pure games machine. Always been a little bit of a Nintendo fanboi but ultimately even the Wii didn't really do it for me either - certainly not with the UK price being the usual rip-off Britain guff. Ho-hum. The moths living in the old wallet are safe for yet another year.
2. Caught the new-ish play Frost/Nixon at the Gielgud theatre later on in the evening, with Michael Sheen and Frank Langella as the two protagonists. That man Sheen is one helluva good actor, way more than just a mimic - to my eyes he captured Frosty as a man above and beyond any hoary old "Hello, good evening and welcome" Bremnerism schtick. He maybe even upped his game beyond those (double) Blair and Kenneth Williams efforts on the goggle box. Good work, fella. Langella was also pretty damn top drawer as Nixon - real gravitas. Yes, a good show all told. Oh, and Salman Rushdie was in the audience, a few seats away from me in the Dress Circle. Really. No, really. No bodyguards or anything. Might have been a doppelganger but I am 99% sure that it wasn't. Got as much right as anyone else to be there, of course, but still a bit odd to see him out among the living. I did briefly estimate potential suicide bomb blast radius but assessed that I was safe and watched the play in a peaceful frame of mind...
3. Regent's Park really rules. Very quiet during the week and beautifully maintained. There must be something in this global warming malarkey because London was again really sunny and mild - even Uncle Mex felt obliged to give his chrome dome an airing in deference to the pleasant weather. I have always liked London, I still really do. Don't know if I'd live there, tho'.
Made with the help of - mash-up of selections from recent Plan B issues. Lovely. Especially Dosh. Super dear, super.
Wednesday 6 December 2006
I was Monty's double...
This is utter, utter genius. Make sure you've got the sound up...
Right, that's me off to boot up the old 'strad emulator (like I really need an excuse...)
Right, that's me off to boot up the old 'strad emulator (like I really need an excuse...)
Damn capitalist pigs
The MD of the company got canned yesterday, three weeks before Christmas. Not good at all. It came as a bit of a shock to me, never mind him - tho' apparently not to pretty much anyone else in the company. Hmmph...that's what you get when you're the code monkey in the corner, well out of the political loop (which, to be fair, is the way I generally like it)...it's just that, sometimes, you miss out on the subtle nuances of the corporate machinations rumbling away behind closed doors. Anyway, much grumbling about missing of targets, et cetera by the usual suspects on the board. Mostly bollocks but I won't go into all that here...
Not the first time that they've behaved like c**ts with some of their employees but I never seem to get used to that kind of thing. Personally I've been pretty much immune in there to any of that muck chucking, mainly by virtue of being the scary tech guy who has written all the software that the place pretty much runs on - it's amazing that for a lot of companies / suits, the software at the core of their business and its strange workings are seemingly indistinguishable from magic. Who am I, kids, to tell 'em any different ? ;-)
Anyhoo, their card is well and truly marked as far as I am concerned...if it wasn't already. When it comes to working for the man, expect to get f**ked sooner rather than later.
Not the first time that they've behaved like c**ts with some of their employees but I never seem to get used to that kind of thing. Personally I've been pretty much immune in there to any of that muck chucking, mainly by virtue of being the scary tech guy who has written all the software that the place pretty much runs on - it's amazing that for a lot of companies / suits, the software at the core of their business and its strange workings are seemingly indistinguishable from magic. Who am I, kids, to tell 'em any different ? ;-)
Anyhoo, their card is well and truly marked as far as I am concerned...if it wasn't already. When it comes to working for the man, expect to get f**ked sooner rather than later.
Sunday 3 December 2006
Hello, good evening and welcome
Hi-de-hi campers ! The big man has at last decided to start blogging after watching seemingly every single other bar steward on the planet doing so, including my old mate iKon over on LiveJournal. So Uncle Mex here finally thought, what the hell, I might as well go all in and jump off that sh*tty cliff like the grizzled misanthropic lemming I am.
So, just what will I be rattling on about ? Hmm...well some expected highlights might well be along the lines of :
Made with the help of - Squarepusher "Hello Everything"
So, just what will I be rattling on about ? Hmm...well some expected highlights might well be along the lines of :
- The latest installment of whatever random dissonant - progressive - doom - techno - jpop - country and western minimalism from my lovely wee record collection I feel like boring the knackers off you with...
- The hilarious world of canine obesity and its ongoing effect on 21st century comedy...
- The continuing adventures of that lovely gorgeous German art student exhibitionist girly from across the road... awwww, bless her l'il cotton socks :-P
- Dispatches from the real golden age of games...ah, Exolon on the old Arnold, Slap Fight on the Megadrive, Dogs of War on the ST, you know the drill :-)
- Oh, and Black Sabbath. Of course there's going to be some Black f***ing Sabbath...I do promise to try and control myself but the old fellas are touring in the new year and I may just have to force myself to mention it once or twice...
Made with the help of - Squarepusher "Hello Everything"
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