Foo Fighters at Dingwalls 2011

It's been a long time...
I thought it was about time for an update of some sort. There's been a lot of films out this summer I've been meaning to write something about so hopefully I'll get round to these soon.

But until then I thought I'd post some videos I filmed from a secret Foo Fighters gig from February this year.
They are without a doubt my favorite band, and have been for years now, so having the opportunity to see them in such an intimate venue has so far been my highlight of 2011, and therefore worthy of a post. This was actually the second secret show of theirs I've been to (the other being Camden Underworld in 2006) but I think this is as close as I'm ever going to get.

After a long wait queuing to get a good view they finally emerged, playing their new (as then unreleased) album, Wasting Light front to back.



I didn't want to record the whole song because I chose to enjoy the show more. Can't stand those people that insist on holding their phone or camera up to film every song.

...But I did get the whole of one of my favorites from the new album, Arlandria.



Anyway, that'll do for the post. I've uploaded the other videos I took from the night to a playlist on my youtube channel.

I even managed to grab one of their guitar picks :)

initial impressions of inception

so i just got back from seeing inception for the first time and thought i'd excrete a quick bloggle post on my initial thoughts. i'll keep it quite vague and spoiler free for anyone who hasn't yet seen it 'cos i went in having only seen the trailer and i really enjoyed the ride.

i'd probably describe inception as a sort of mission:impossible meets the matrix with a little dark city and james bond with alot of chris nolan's intelligence thrown in (like the kind found in memento). usually i'm a bit put off by a long run-time but i found inception was well paced with no lulls and the almost 3 hours flew by.

what i loved:

• the mission:impossible style team on a mission (obviously)
  
• the great effects - which nolan plays down too much in interviews. they looked incredible.
  
• that the matrix just got it's ass kicked
• the whole dream within a dream concept
• the concept of time within a dream
• all the phun with physics
  

i really liked the whole universe the film takes place in and i'd love to see more of it. i'm not sure whether a sequel would live up to inception but i think it could potentially make a cool little tv series. i'd imagine it being similar to dollhouse only with more of a team, but i guess a tv budget would never make anything as cool as anything seen within inception.

so maybe a comic series would be a better cheaper idea - as seen in this cool inception prequel comic. i'd like to read more comics set within inception's universe. the possibilities for cool story-lines set within inception's concept are pretty endless.


i think i enjoyed it nearly as much as the dark knight (posters are pretty similar aren't they?) and at time of writing i'd probably put this as my current best film of 2010 (ironman 2 and kick-ass are probably a 2nd and 3rd) but i've still got toy story 3 and scott pilgrim to come!

there's still alot of theorising that could be done over inception and i'm looking forward to reading into it more, so if you find anything cool throw it my way :)

ipad thoughts

as usual it's been a while since blogging but my ipad turned up last thursday so i figured i'd write my thoughts.

when it was first announced earlier this year i was pretty skeptical like the majority of the planet is right now. i'm a big apple fan anyway, i love my iphone and macbook pro - which makes it kinda difficult to justify getting an ipad. initially i was trying to think of what uses i would have for one, which i could think of about three. before i bought my macbook i used to have a dual monitor setup with a custom made pc, so i thought it'd be kinda cool to be able to use the ipad as a second screen for my macbook, which it turns out you can!


second use i thought of was being able to use the ipad as an expensive wireless mouse and keyboard for when my macbook is connected to my tv (for watching movies and tv shows, etc) - i could already do this with my iphone but the screen is so small it's pretty fiddly and kinda unusable. i use iteleport but here's something similar.

my third reason i came up with was purely how much of my iphone battery it'd save. the iphone is great and it does so much that you find yourself using it alot. it's main power drain is playing games. when your playing on a psp or a nintendo ds battery isn't too much of an issue when you need to go out, but when the battery your draining is your only source of communication when your out and about it becomes a pain when you've spent all morning playing games and need to go out in the afternoon.

in the time between it being annouced and released in the uk i read alot of stuff online about it. all the gadget blogs showing off all the innovative ideas people were trying and new uses people were finding for it. i also read alot of the columns from the haters. it's impossible to please the haters even if you invent 'the perfect product' let alone one that appears useless to someone with a smart phone and a laptop of some form. and i agree, it's a difficult sale to those people.

when the pre order was announced i figured i'd take the plunge anyway and if it sucks i'll just ebay it. but i've been using it for a week now and although i was skeptical at first after trying it i get it, and i love it. i understand it's not for everyone and that's fine but i think over time people are going to find more and more uses for the thing.

when it first turned up i'd never actually seen one before, but it was smaller and lighter than i was expecting. in comparison to my macbook pro it's alot smaller and lighter and for what i use my macbook for, i think i'd take my ipad if going away for a week but as the ipad is right now, it'd would never replace my macbook completely.

it's really useful to just have this large screen device that's instantly on and ready to use when you need it - no boot up times. it's great to get online instantly and check a few web sites, emails, youtube, twitter, facebook, whatever. i know you can argue that you can do all that on your smartphone but it really is so much better on a bigger screen. after using the ipad for a while the iphone seems way to small to be doing the same things.

web sites look really good on the big ipad screen and function really well with the touch screen scrolling, panning around and pinch to zoom that was introduced on the iphone. the obvious weakness with web browsing is the lack of flash support, but to be honest i haven't found it too big of a deal. youtube works and the bbc iplayer works so that's about 80% of the videos i watch online anyway. and why would you want flash games when you can play much better games from the app store, designed for a touch screen device.

comics are amazing on the ipad. i'm not a big comic fan but there's still a few out there i've been meaning to read for a while, so i've been holding out till the ipad todo some catching up. there really isn't any device out there as good for reading comics. the marvel app rocks! but there's also other comic reader apps that will read cbr, rar or pdf files.

games look and play great. the iphone really paved the way for touchscreen games but it's main weakness for gaming is that the screen is too small to incorporate the display and controls at the same time. to control alot of games your fingers end up covering about 50% of the screen in some cases. i really cannot recommend plant vs zombies enough, but after playing it's hd version on the ipad the game feels as if it was designed to be played on this device. it looks and plays so much better than it's pc or mac versions.



i think overall the ipad is just a really good media sponge for all forms of content. listening to music, watching movies/tv shows, viewing web sites, reading rss feeds, playing games, viewing photos, podcasts, books, comics, magazines, newspapers, audiobooks, facebook, twitter, youtube, iplayer, emails, instant messaging, and google maps - all thrown together on one well designed, well thought out, fast, simple and intuitive device that isn't too big, or too small to handle all this content. sure there maybe some stuff missing that you wish it had or did but this is a first generation device (the first ipod kinda sucked). apple will add more features and memory to it's future generations and probably offer them for the same price or less, that's just how they roll.

for all the people who think the ipad is useless i suggest you at least try one before making your judgment, i think over time the ipad will become more and more useful and eventually will win alot of people over, and if not they appear to make pretty good cat toys anyway.


as a side note i also found this article quite interesting: understanding ipad - it talks about the ipad being more about consumption than contribution, which does make sense but i think given some time the ipad could help improve with contribution. whether it be via the app store (with apps like brushes) or i think it could also make for a great input device into a pc - an advanced multitouch trackpad with it's own display would have some great uses in video, photo or web editing.

aliens vs predator demo thoughts

people who follow me on twitter (probably you if you're reading this) will probably know that i'm pretty excited about the new aliens vs predator game coming out this month. the old pc version of avp was probably the first online multiplayer game i got into using the craptastic gamespy arcade (yes back then online multiplayer wasn't even supported within the game itself). i played some avp 2 when it came out which added loads of new features and better graphics but it just didn't seem as much fun to play.

back story done. a new multi-platform avp game from the makers of the original is being released and some pretty sweet looking teasers and trailers are shown off:


looks good - maybe even good enough to pre-order.

ok, so a few days ago a demo was released (on pc, ps3 and xbox i would assume, but i played the xbox version). now if you're gunna release a demo before your game's released there's a fair old bit of pressure to release a good demo - there's currently no other way for people to try your game. you need to reasure the people who want to buy the game and try and sell it to the guys that didn't.

which brings me to the main motivation for a blog post. i want to like this game. before this demo i probably would have bought this game without question, but this makes a pretty good example as how not todo a game demo. first of all this is a single player and multiplayer game, and there will be an audience that want to play either one or both of these. not only that but there are quite a few different multiplayer game modes too.

personally i'm more looking to the single player experience. i'm a big fan of the alien and predator movies and pretty much hate the avp movies (like the rest of the world) so creating a similar experience within a single player campaign should be good fun - and i'm still looking forward to trying the game's campaign mode.

however the multiplayer will always have balancing issues between playing as aliens, marines and predators. first i should mention the brightness. avp games have always been dark. aliens need to hide in it. marines need to fear it. now darkness isn't really an issue when playing as aliens 'cause enemies are highlighted anyway and same applies for predators with their vision modes but as marines your left in the dark with a shitty flashlight and a motion tracker.

now i know darkness plays into this game alot, but this is ridiculous:


yes, this is unedited and the in-game brightness turned right up. i admit this could be something on my tv but i messed with some settings and it didn't help much, plus i've never had any problems with any other games before.

as a marine in this game you're basically fucked. which is a shame 'cause marines were my favorite mode to play. predators can cloak and lock onto you. aliens are so much faster, see you miles away and can scale up walls and ceilings. a flashlight and motion tracker ain't gunna do shit when an alien can be on the horizon one second and biting a hole through your head the next.

the final game will have many online game modes so why in the demo would you limit us to an 8 player free for all deathmatch. surely part of the point is to have the marines and aliens working as seperate teams at least. but oh well, at least having one game type will make finding games easy right? ...

wrong!

maybe call of duty: modern warfare 2 has set the bar too high, but you can select any of the dozen game modes and be in a game ready within 10 seconds 90% of the time and load times getting from the lobby into the game are about 10 seconds too. all other games should be like this. either copy call of duty's code or buy it off them.

this demo takes around a minute to find a game and i saw this useful message for much longer than you'd expect and very often too:


anyway this post has been longer than i expected. i'm just annoyed that this was a game i would have bought without question before this demo was released, but now i'll hold off and wait to hear how it's reviews turn out first. the final game could still be good but this demo is not gunna do it's sales any good at all.

if you read this far you must either be insanely bored or you're a big enough avp fan to get this far, so as a reward you'll probably like this vid:

red letter media movie reviews

a few months back i found this great seven-part video review of star wars episode one. if you haven't seen it yet already try and find time for it because it's brilliant. it's more of a piss take review (not difficult) but it still raises some good points while being entertaining and very funny. seven parts is a long review but if you find the time give it a look. i also can confirm it's the "best, weirdest 70-minute review of then phantom menace" - sci fi wire.

find more on the red letter media youtube channel.

anyway the same guy is back for a shorter review on avatar. so chick it oowt innit...


followed by paaaart 2...



the end.

converting the lost to lost

hoping to get back on the blogging again for some more updates and i've been meaning todo a post on lost for a while.

so season 6 is just about to kick off and i don't think i've ever been as excited for a tv series to start again, but it will really suck once the season ends and it sets in that we'll never get a new episode of lost to look forward to. i really don't think there will be another show like lost for a long time.

i've been a big fan of this show since it started back in 2004 when i accidently downloaded it thinking it was the cool channel 4 reality show of the same name but when i started watching it really wasn't what i was expecting. so i went into this series knowing literally nothing. no adverts, teasers, trailers. i'd never heard of it (this was when it first aired in the usa, way before it aired on uk tv). but the pilot episode worked really well at grabbing my attention (as you'd hope for "the most expensive pilot in television history" - which it was at the time).

the only problem with the pilot episode is it kinda leads people to believe it's just jurassic park: the tv series because it only shows enough to suggest that. it so is not that. it's actually a million times more interesting than a jurassic park tv series could ever be. so don't be fooled by the pilot episode.

if you were sold enough by season 1 the opener to season 2 was probably one of the best openers on a tv series - ever. i love that this show just raises so many questions (although too many without answers can get frustrating) but it's all part of the fun. lost is so unlike any other show out there and it's down to it's online theories and discussions on the questions it raises. sure it gets pretty geeky from there onwards but i love that you can either watch the show on face value to delve deeper and go online.

even being a big fan of the series since the beginning i'll admit it did seem to stumble a little during it's thrid season but if you stick with it, seasons four and five more than make up for it. seriously i was really enjoying the series but after season four onwards this shit got really good!

a few fan sites i regularly check out are:
http://darkufo.blogspot.com
http://the-odi.blogspot.com
and http://www.docarzt.com

they provide news, theories, podcasts, forums and optional spoilers (if that's what your into).
and all three can be followed on twitter for regular site updates.

i also highly recommend checking out seanie b's youtube channel. he does some great lost secrets and recap videos that also give some good theories and talk about things you might have missed or forgotten about. he also runs his own web site over at www.lostvideorecaps.com


anyway i really cannot recommend this show enough. if you don't catch up in time to get with the excitement of next weeks episode and online talk while there's new stuff to come, it's your loss. but i know that it will really damage the experience once all 6 seasons have aired and people just starting lost will be able to just look up answers to some of the many questions from the show.

in the mean time check out this weeks o.d.i lost podcast. if you're into lost as much as i am you should find it quite interesting.

paranormal activity review

ok so just finished watching paranormal activity. every since i first heard of this movie i really wanted to see it. and it's been a long time (that review was written in jan 2008). i generally don't like buying into the hype but that seems to be the way paramount want to sell it with a trailer like this:



looks pretty good right? yeah i thought so too. paramount seems to be marketing this movie in a weird way. it was filmed in 2007. all the early reviews i read were very good, so what the hell paramount!? what's the hold up? now in 2009 they've decided for some reason it's time to release it. but they can't just release it, that'd be too easy. it's already a movie with nothing but good reviews so let's release this as agonisingly slowly as possible with exclusive tiny screenings in america first, then have all the new good reviews push people into demanding their local cinema show it - which only applies to america. which of course leads to more people raving about it.

well yesturday a good quality version of the movie leaked online. usually i normally make a rule of going to the cinema to see a new film i wanna see whenever possible, obviously. it's just better. but in this case i'm happy to download it early. fuck you paramount. if this had been available to see at any cinema around me between 2007 and now i'd be more than happy to go pay to see it for a better experience. that said i'll probably pay to go see it anyway when it comes out (plus apparently there's some alternate endings in existence...).

sorry. paramount rant over.

i thought blair witch project was ok. cloverfield was great and i loved rec/quarantine (also check out the rec 2 trailer if you haven't already 'cause that looks fucking great!). but hype's a difficult thing. i read alot of hype behind the film (as any of my twitter followers will probably know) but overall i still really liked it. there are parts in the film that are genuinely really creepy. more so than... well probably any film i can think of. but i can see it turning into another blair witch project. the early adopters (see the over reactions of the dumb americans in the trailer) will say how fucking scary the film was and then everyone else will go in with high expectations and say it's more stupid than scary. so you can't win either way.

i really liked it. maybe a little more than drag me to hell because it's going for scary and less comedy. the more i think about the ending i saw the creepier it seems but there are so many different ways it could have gone so i look forward to seeing the dvd extras when it eventually comes out.

i recommend you watch it. if you don't believe the hype then you'll probably really like it... if that makes sense.

4 creepy goings on out of 5.