Oh...my...goodness...OH...MY...GOODNESS!!!

As another wonderful year draws stealthily to a close, the big man has mostly been watching sport, as usual, and the PDC World Darts Championship in particular. Magnificent arrows all round this week as we close in on The Power picking up his inevitable 14th (yes, fourteenth!) world title (a seemingly miserly 11/4 on with SkyBet... but I am feckin' telling you, it's like buying money, buying bleedin' money, weigh in, weigh right in!!!)



Ahem, anyways, one of the guaranteed highlights of the coverage is always Mister Sidney Waddell and his bewildering array of beer bellied bon mots affectionately aimed at the tungsten tossers and their barmy army of acolytes. The enthusiasm of the Geordie genius is infectious but not hard to understand as, unlike the often turgid fitba (especially the weekly manure served up here), the darts never seems to let you down on the entertainment front. Not ever. The vid on show is the golden voice talking in the golden arm doing the first live 9 dart telly finish - about 0.50 odd is the point where Sid starts getting somewhat emotional... what else can you say except magic darts!

Dreddlock Holiday

Ye gods! Is this an early Christmas present I see before me ??? A new Judge Dredd movie getting green lit by those clever bods over at DNA films (28 Days Later et al) ? You are spoiling me, Herr ambassador! Just hope that they dig up old Fred Dryer and give him his rightful place in history as our man with the jutting jawline, the bastardly attitude and the clear S & M fetish (shurely shome mishtake?).

Hopefully there'll be none of the helmet removal business (ooohhh, sounds nasty) or the Hershey / Anderson snogging business, or the Fergee being a wisecracking smart arse instead of a rightfully stinking, muscle-headed retard business (Christ, if they really need a sidekick, howzabout John Cleese as Max Normal ? Anyone ???). At least I am pretty confident that there definitely won't be any of the punch drunk, mumbly, marble chewing "I ammm duhhh laaaww"" business... If all of that aforementioned garbage is out of the window, then we're definitely in, erm, business...

Okay, I'm getting a wee bit ahead of myself here but it's all good so far. Just hope to Grud they get a non-straight-to-video director and decent Photoshop budget, s'all I'm looking for, really... (Damn your eyes, Cannon!!!)

Anyways, on that note, happy yuletide, y'all !!!

...and, another thing...

While I'm in the mood for posting piccy's that have tickled me, I thought I'd dig out my favourite LOLCat LOLDog of the past year. 

Oh, and my favourite LOLBear, too. I've got a feeling that I recognise the little bugger as well... 

Well that makes two of us...

Not a great past few days here in the fortress of bolloxchewed, what with Oliver Postgate joining the ranks of the dearly departed as well as the sainted Accies getting scudded 7 - 1 by the Boche (tho', thankfully not in our own midden this time) and dropping back to the foot of the EssPeeEll, I've not been filled with much good cheer. Until I saw the accompanying picture. A brammer, I'd say.

Give generously, dirt worshipping heathens!

Feckin' hell ! The last post was on August 11th ?! WTF is going on in here ?!?!? Not going to give the full rundown on my whereabouts over the past couple of months but I have been rather busy over the past wee while, honestly. Hmmm...

Anyhoo, I only poked my head in the door to post a link to a campaign that I very much approve of. Apologies in advance to those of my friends who are of a holy persuasion. I may have mentioned once or twice that I, um, am not that way inclined...



Tagged this one as both fun and misanthropy. Always been a winning one-two combo with the big man. Especially with Accies losing their last four straight league games...

Wii bit of light relief (!)

Hi-de-hi, campers! Haven't posted for a wii while... tee-hee, see what I did there ? Yes, I finally got around to it, I let the moths out of the old wallet and bought myself that blessed Wii white beasty just like I promised... jeepers creepers, what can I say ? It is simply wonderful. I feel like a wii kid again. It's already right up there with my beloved old cpc 464 as the best games machine I have ever had. I've only got Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Super Paper Mario but they are all more than enough for this old fella at the moment. In fact, I haven't had such strained wrists since coming across(!) that Noni / ventriloquist dummy video a few months back... Ahem



BTW, it turns out that the bad yin in the Mario game is a fella named Count Bleck... hmmm... No worries, I've dealt with plenty of bleck counts back in my Hillhoose days, another one won't be a problem... I'm fully expecting the final battle to be in an incinerator facing a housing estate...

BTW II, you ain't going to believe this but my daily Wii Fit test tells me that I have a Wii Fit age of 28 (no typo, twenty friggin' eight!) and that my BMI is 22 (!!), which is apparently absolutely bloody perfect! Who knew ? I guess being built like a rack-stretched cadaver must have been actually a good thing all along and is therefore clearly the way forward for the rest of the human race... Speaking of racks, the frisky fräulein has been absent without leave for the past month or so... I'm hoping to gawd that she's just on a summer holiday back in Deutschland (her wii car - oh bugger, pun overload malfunction, I'll have to stop right now - is still parked outside the flat). Anyhoo, suppose my poor old wrists are grateful for small mercies that they can at least get some rest now...

BTW III, that ain't me in the vid. I will be found generally wearing my beloved lime green Sabbath T-shirt or suchlike when doing the old hula hoop stuff. That's how you can tell it ain't me, right ??? Glad to clear that one up.

Circles and rings, dragons and kings

Had to post this one when I saw it. The animated trailer for the new Rules of Hell box set. Brilliant. Especially the Neon Knight waving his chib. Bow before the power and the glory, unbelievers !!!

If the damned were screaming, it was impossible to hear...

Whoa, that was one heavy weekend. An impossibly loud evening at the Barras on Thursday night followed by a jaunt down south in the wee small hours of Friday to get the ears pummelled again by Ron Maiden and the Dixie Chickens at the home of rugby™ - well, not quite, those old metal bands are almost never loud enough for me, but I digress - and then back up the road again to watch some decent telly. Splendid. Hmm, I feel some five word reviews coming on...

My Bloody Valentine @ Barrowlands, Glasgow
The digested watch : Advice, anyone, on curing tinnitus???

Yes, they were bloody loud. Not quite at Sunn 0))) levels but much more trebly and therefore pretty darn painful. But just celebrating the excessive volume is an injustice. The truth is, they were mostly great, a perfect realisation of that hoped for ethereal, giddily melodic dreampop thing that they were striving for all those years ago. Way better than anyone could have expected. Tho' that twenty minute drone session during "You made me realise" at the end was truly a load of old wank...



Iron Maiden @ Twickenham, London
The digested watch : Old skool fun for everyone

Maiden were as Maiden always are... a cracking couple of hours back to being a fifteen year old again. Only playing stuff of a vintage no later than 1988 (apart from "Fear of the Dark") was certainly a big help in that regard... what a stadium, by the way. Anyway, the lads kindly deigning to play "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" was enough to make this particular old sea dog go home happy :-)



Doctor Who : "Journey's End" (Telly)
The digested watch : Everything and the kitchen sink...

Not a bad series ending to an up and down series. In typical Russell T fashion, he brought back a cast of a billion previous supporting characters to fill in the spaces where things like suspense and plot details usually go but it would be churlish to suggest it wasn't enjoyable. Just hope the whole doctor clone thing will now finally put the kibosh on the Billie the vampire slayer "I luv you Rose Tyler" gurning business being reprised. Actually, I'm hoping against hope that the arrival of Lord Moffat will herald a return to proper Baker-Pertwee weirdness values and the disposal of all that sub Hollyoaks rubbidge.

BTW, when wee Martha went to Germany, I was also hoping against hope that they'd taken up my story idea of her going to the zoo to save all the eisbärbabies before escaping with them to Glasgow(!) where she elopes with a tall, dark, handsome (well, one out of three ain't bad) native she meets there. Bah, curse those narrow minded fools !!!

The games of our lives

I've seen it folks. Nerd heaven. It exists. I've been there. There doesn't even have to be any death involved (except maybe for those last vestiges hipster aspiration, never a problem for Mexton). Yes, last Thursday night, Video Games Live at the Royal Concert Hall. Two and a half hours watching and listening to the wonderful RSNO trawling through the game music back pages all the way from Pong and Space Invaders (yes, they had the violins doing the honours for Pong's minimalist bleeps and the double basses grinding out the marching invader "tune"!) right up to the contemporary full bhuna orchestral scores from those new fangled 3D graphics demos that they are trying to pass off as games to the kids today such as Halo 3, God of War, blah blah [yawn].

In between the two extremes was where the real gold was to be found, a quick trawl through the late eighties arcades, my spiritual home, with Ghosts 'n' Goblins, Rastan Saga and the mighty Out Run, the latter being especially well served by an impromptu solo piano medley later on in the proceedings, a glorious slice of none-more eighties hawaiian shirted heaven! Other highlights for the big man were the Mario medley (especially the piano genius Martin Leung playing my old favourite, the Benny Hill-esque über jolly SNES Super Mario World level two music) and a finishing blast of selections from Castlevania right at the death. A spectacular night's entertainment, so good that I just had to eschew my usual self-imposed five word review limit for one night only (unless Maiden are amazing at Twickers next Saturday, always a possibility).


Had a ticket for Radiohead at Glasgow Green on the Friday but didn't go - any gig was going to be a come down from the bleep worship. It was peeing down with rain and, perhaps more importantly, the third week of the League of Legends darts was on Setanta - gotta get your priorities straight, right? Though I will admit to almost regretting it after seeing blingmeister Bobby George unfastening his right breast pocket after every 180 he hit and flashing his man boob. Eeewwww. Still, another great evenings telly. Been reading Sid Waddell's "Bellies and Bullseyes" for the past couple of weeks so was well up for the darts. Just a shame Sidney isn't providing the tonsils for the tungsten tickling this time... "At the age of 31, Alexander of Macedonia wept salt tears for there were no more worlds to conquer... Eric Bristow is only 27". Yes, there really is only one word for that - magic darts !!!

Made with the help of -

Journey "Revelation" - Aaargh, Davros, we should have feckin' went to see 'em!!! The wee Fillipino chappy on the mic is a vocal Perry doppelgänger! And this new album is a belter to boot. Goddammit !!! The rest of you, stop that sniggering at the back there!

Pesci have mercy

What a frankly fucking rotten few months the grim reaper has inflicted on the blighted face of humanity. Balls to all the standard issue vileness of war, genocide and famine, I'm talking about some of the funniest people on the planet popping their cloggs, and in quite alarming numbers, too. On this side of the pond, Alan Coren and the sainted Humph have slipped away into the long night. Now, over in the States, I find out that George Carlin has just been taken as well.

If you don't know the great man's work, imagine that the blessed Bill Hicks had an angrier, even more misanthropic grandad with a super high IQ and what we might euphemistically say was a colourful vocabulary and you might get somewhere near the ballpark old George played in. He was 71 so the old yin had a good innings but it's still another monumental pisser for me.

Thankfully, there is bucket loads of him on YouTube, do yourselves a favour and have a gander. Here's one of my favourites to be going on with :

Notes from a small race track

Bah, went down to the old fart's day at Monsters of Rawwwkk Download on Friday past. Lovely wee train journey down, lovely wee hotel in Derby, lovely weather, all wasted on me as I felt as sick as a dog with chronic gut ache and old man back - tho' partaking in the traditional Donny death-burger didn't help matters much. Serves me right for being a skiving bar steward earlier in the week - karmic retribution, baby. Anyways, I'm not going to dwell on it. It was nearly a bloody great day. Mercifully, the big fella only saw four bands as it turned out...


Motörhead
The digested watch : Rickenbacker 4001; Ace of bass
Alternatively : Much better in a pub...

Hmmm, usually I like the Motörheadbangers as much as anyone but they really need the concentrated volume of an enclosed space to give you the full impact of their barrage... their usual crunch was essentially lost as it wafted across the field. Still, some great moments in there, including a touching(honestly!) cover of "Rosalie" dedicated to "my mate Phil Lynott". And "Overkill" is always amazing, Mikkey Dee's drum assault allied to that bass always does the job for me.


Fall of Troy
The digested watch : Feisty oddball racket - cheers, lads!
Alternatively : Only non-dinosaurs spotted down there...

Had a soft spot for these young 'uns for a wee while - that Terrorizer magazine CD is always worth a punt for fans of extreme music of all kinds. Anyways, sound to me kinda like a three way between Nirvana, King Crimson and Brutal Truth. HardGrungeyProgCore, hmm, now that does have a certain ring to it...


Judas Priest
The digested watch : Leppard meets Slayer in Brum
Alternatively : Barmy old skool pantomime magick!

I love the Priest, b*ll*cks to the lot of you. My gut ache temporarily eased off while the lads were on stage and they rewarded me with a gem of a set showing off a lot of old semi-obscurities that I'd never heard them do live ("Eat Me Alive"!). Only Priest could do an AOR sing-a-long like "You Got Another Thing Coming" minutes after the proto-Slayer blasts of "Dissident Agressor" and the screaming "Painkiller". The old fella's voice is showing signs of wear in the upper registers but he is still the doyen of metal singers (along with wee Ron, of course). Superb, almost worth the admission price on their own.


Kiss
The digested watch : Lipstick, powder & paint; not shaky!
Alternatively : Biggest dinosaurs spotted down there...

Hell, my guts were really playing up by this point and I only stayed for six or so of their toons before crawling away to my bed. I'd seen all of their schtick before, of course, when they first re-formed over ten years ago now and it is essentially the same show... however, it is still a brilliant piece of light entertainment. And the real Ace and Catman didn't seem at all missed to these jaded ears...

There, that's more than enough waffle from me - so much for this whole five word review quick knock off thing...

More crumbs from the dining table...

Just a wee quickie. Thought I'd do a few more of my five word reviews of recent cultural detritus while I'm in the mood and feeling all keyed up about going down to Donny tomorrow... yippee!!! Anyhoo, as an arthritic acrobat might say, let's crack on...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Movie)
The digested watch : Marginally better than Last Crusade...
Expanded : Still means it was sh*t (ooh, maybe controversial...)

The Incredible Hulk (Movie)
The digested watch : Surprisingly good; Last one? P*sh
Alternatively : Sad piano revived - nearly wept!

Saw this while taking a sickie well deserved rest this morning. I loathed the Ang Lee abortion so anything semi-decent was an improvement on that turd. Was better than that, it was genuinely no' bad... the barrage of in-jokes and references to the old tv series was always likely to work for me but the clincher was the (all too brief) few bars of that melancholic minor chord piano music from the end titles off the telly *ulp, choking up as I write this... *

Doctor Who "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead" (Telly)
The digested watch : Moffat - The mark of quality!
Alternatively : Russell, Russell, get tae f***

Marvellous work, right up there with his earlier "Blink" and "The Empty Child". Jeepers, even maybe up there with the likes of "The Ark in Space" and "The Talons Of Weng Chiang" from the blessed seventies. Whattaguy!

The Lovely German (Neighbour)
The digested letch : My estimate ? 34D-24-34
Alternatively : Naked again? Oh, yes indeedy!


There, that was nice. Off to watch five hours of the 1979 General Election coverage, being kindly broadcast by BBC 4 a little bit later. If you don't want to know the results, look away now...

Indigestion

Well, buggery, this old blogging lark doesn't half get on your sore bits at times. Sorry 'bout the lack of action in here, been otherwise occupied with living and other such trivia, so busy in fact that I typically can't be arsed giving a detailed breakdown of all the goodies I've been seeing and, erm, doing over the past two months or so. I spew out too much verbiage at the best of times in here and, as an essentially lazy big forker, I really have had to draw the line and say balls to all that. Back to brevity, always a better idea as far as I'm concerned.

In fact, in this new spirit of succinctness (and also in the spirit of ripping off the digested read), I've decided that, in future, I'm going to go to the other extreme and stick with five word reviews of all the various movies and concerts that I've been going to every week (and will doubtless be going to all bloody summer). Feck it, I don't get paid for writing this shit so, as Ronnie Corbett might have said to his missus, the shorter the better.

In the words of the fêted sage, gambler and black power icon Lando Calrissian, here goes nothing...

In Bruges (Movie)
The digested watch : Colin Farrell? Funny?? Who knew??!?

Van Der Graaf Generator @ Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
The digested watch : Age did not wither them
Alternatively : Drummer looked like big Matt*
*Honestly, he did, he was the complete image of my old man. If I'd had a can of cheap Swedish lager to hand then I'd have tested the theory, was a bleedin' doppelgänger, I swear. Tho', admittedly, I was absolutely hammered at the time...

Doctor Who Series Four
The digested watch : Generally, load of old bollocks
Alternatively : Gimme more lovely Martha, godammit !!!!

Iron Man (Movie)
The digested watch : Not enough Sabbath; Still magic!!!



Gemma Hayes @ Oran Mor, Glasgow
The digested watch : Blissfully unaware of ugly stick
(unfair, really, her new elpee is ace, it's hardly her fault she's a looker)




DJ Yoda @ The Arches, Glasgow
The digested watch : Mashed-up hip-hop genius; Crowd? Wankers :-(

Doomsday (Movie)
The digested watch : Gloomy Glesga, gratuitous gore - goody!

Phew, not half glad that lot's out of the road. I think this new format is a winner, whaddya think ???

Damn it all to Hell

RIP, Chuck. You will be missed, that's for sure.

Well, I don't know much about art, but...

Amazing the oddities you stumble over on yon new fangled interweb thingy. Couldn't tell you a great deal about who these chappies are or what they might even sound like but such a loving re-creation of a pretty darn obscure late sixties / early seventies Sabbath promo photo session is more enough to pique Uncle Mex's interest. Very possibly (okay, probably) setting myself up for an evening of highly pretentious, pseudo-situationist guff of the first ordure in the company of a platoon of beard strokers but, hell, I might just pop my head in to the ABC on that night, methinks...

Also, loosely continuing on the old art school trip, I got sent a very nice link the other day with a lovely wee comic starring a blessed giant squid, no less. Hell, ya gotta take your thrills where you can get 'em, that's what I always say...

Made with the help of -

snd "stdio" - Makes me want to go up the art school every Saturday night and get utterly hammered listening to repetitive beats until three in the morning. Except when there's good boxing on t'telly via Setanta, of course - I nearly had some dough on big Enzo, as well... phew!

A Megablast from the past...

No, I can't quite believe it myself. The search, the sacred quest that I've been on for years, nay decades (-ish) is finally over. Yes, you all thought that I was just a nutter with an overactive imagination on top of a worrying fetish for ancient arcade shmups (as well as a selection of cute, furry animals but we won't go there) but I've finally cracked it. That bloody game that I told you about, the one with the uncredited rip-off of Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu as part of the soundtrack. Okay, so it wasn't Thunder Cross after all, that doesn't matter (I'm 99% sure that both games were briefly in Electronic Experience together at one time). No, it was an old skool Taito belter called Megablast !!! And here's some footage (with lovely audio) to prove it...



Ah, the wonder of KLOV and an internet world chock full of sad, demented loonies interested in the same kind of obscure, ephemeral nonsense as the big fellow. YATA!!!

Made with the help of -

Autechre "Amber" - Lovely old skool experimental techno for a gnarly old skool gamer to drool over while rocking like it's 1991.

Mr Heli

Was most excited the other week to get a letter from the regimental commanding officer of the chaps in the TA building next door informing me that there would be a Royal Navy Sea King landing in the neighbouring car park (!) on the coming weekend as part of some routine training exercise. Iommi be praised, it must be Christmas again! A freebie air show from the comfort of my own back bedroom. Indeed, at the very least, what a bleedin' glorious racket to look forward to if nothing else...

Yes, there's nothing the big fellow likes better on a Saturday night than some big chopper (!) squeezing into his backyard (!!) to deposit its load of seamen (oh, matron, really !!!). Sadly, I was double booked last night, being out at the concert hall to listen to some old bastids hack up all the way through the RSNO playing Mahler's 4th (yes, I've fulminated over that kind of thing before) so I didn't get to see the initial landing... but I did catch the bleeder for posterity when it took off again at 11.00pm - timed brilliantly to coincide with the pundits talking their usual stock blandola p*sh on "Match of the Day" such that I didn't even miss any of the fitba highlights action - perfick! Shame the same can't be said about my shocking attempt a camera work...



Yes, I know, it's darker than the back of Ashy's neck (another one for the Hillhousians out there) but it was all kicking off at eleven o'clock at night, y'know. Funnily enough, at around the 0.12 mark, Lord Lucan belted across the car park out of the undergrowth heading towards the river riding Shergar but I couldn't quite film it properly in that bloody light either...

BTW, I was contemplating dubbing the music for one of my favourite old skool arcade / ST / Amstrad shooters over the vid but it would have been sacreligious - turn up thye volume and hear that wonderful roar. Marvellous... :-)

Cute little Flocke

Without wishing to turn this blog into an on-going soap called Uncle Mex's Polar Bear Sanctuary, I couldn't help but post a link to another wee eisbärbaby who's driving people knutty (ha, how droll!) over in Deutschland. Her name is Flocke (pronounce to rhyme with Fokker, a la Stan Boardman "but these Fokkers were Messerschmitts") which means "Snowflake" in German. And she has her own blog as well, naturally.



What a wee cracker! BTW, I think the sound you hear in the vid is snoring, not flatulence, so don't be getting all snippy with the wee yin over it.

You Say You Want a Resolution?

Hallo meine freunde (oops, still in frisky Fräulein stalker mode), the new year has finally reared its ugly head and it's now time for making known my plans for world domination once again. In the spirit of this article in the current Wired magazine, I thought that I would kick off the year by sharing some of my nerd-specific resolutions for the coming annus horribilis mirabilis.

1. I really gots ta get myself a Wii. Someone, somewhere will have the feckers in stock again at a reasonable price, at least by the spring... after which time the mighty Wii Fit will finally be available in the UK. Oh, yes. In fact, PDC World Championship Darts 2008 could just be getting a look in around that time as well... Hell, it's a public service helping Miyamoto-san and co beat back the brain dead 3D FPS HD acronym flogging hordes...
   
   
2. Must continue to keep the feck away from social networking sites. Enough already with asking the big man for links to his Facebook or MySpace pages. Fuck off. Am I prepared to suck on a meaty slice of the Gates / Murdoch corporate cock for the dubious privilege of getting relentlessly spammed by a million "friends" that I either don't know or never gave a flying fuck about in the first place? I really don't think so. Did I somehow get into this ole computer thang because I'm some ultra ebullient people person with some latent desire to buddy up with 101 random cunts? Fuck, no. Gimme some anti-social networking, I'd buy that for a dollar. Yessir, keeping out of the road of all that nonsense really won't be a problem for old Mexton. And you can take that one to the bank.
   
   
3. Yes, make 2008 the year of the Linux desktop! Well, okay, round at Uncle Mex's house, that is. Haven't had a proper Linux installation since I punted the old P133 a couple of years back. Will probably plump for an Ubuntu /Kubuntu partition and use that for my internet access, Python hacking, etc. I'll tell you this, XP is the last feckin' version of the beast of Redmond's piss awful operating system family that I'll be having as my main desktop platform. I think my next x86 will be a Mac, for starters...
   
   
4. Hi-Fi separate system, make it so! Next music system will be separates based, that is a cast iron certainty. I've had more than enough of the recent CD playback behaviour of recent micro systems where the player has somehow decided to take it upon itself to add in its own little gap between every track, regardless of how the original disc was mastered. Horrid stuff that really fucks up your listening experience of whatever Live Evil it is you are listening to. Wretched, awful (yet apparently wilful) negligence and stupidity, increasingly common at the lower end of the market with those players engineered to play MP3s straight off CD-R/RW discs. Balls to all that. ASAP the big man will be off down to Richer Sounds to get things sorted and circumvent this silliness.
   

Hmm, s'pose I'll have to check back here later on to see whether I have actually kept any of these promises, if I remember. Bugger.

Made with the help of -

Van Der Graf Generator "Pawn Hearts" - If I need reminding just what a glorious singer the mighty Peter Hamill is, I stick on a cold blast of this little beauty. A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers on yo ass.