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.

iphone 3gs review

i've been an iphone user now pretty much since they released the first model in america and i've never looked back. it's quite weird how different it feels to other phones i've had in the past. the general mobile phone rule is about a month after you buy a phone the next generation of models come out that look cooler, have more features, better camera, are smaller, lighter, faster, better... but even since i bought my iphone in 2007 i haven't wanted to change to a different phone. sure other phones do the same stuff (arguably better in some cases). other phones have better cameras, replaceable batteries and probably plenty of other features. but overall nothing seems to handle everything as well as the iphone and this is mainly due to it's app store and it's ongoing firmware updates from apple.

i was happy enough with my first generation iphone and probably would have stuck with it alot longer had i not lost it at this years reading festival moshing. so it was time for an update so i figured i might aswell push the boat out and grab a 16gb iphone 3gs. when it was first announced it was definitely an update i could have skipped and waited for the next generation model but being forced to upgrade i'm pretty happy i did.

the main updates were the massive speed increase (it's really noticeable), improved camera, video recording, 3g internet speeds, voice control, gps and it's built in compass (to orientate google maps). so a pretty decent upgrade really, and overall this thing is pretty fucking great.

essentially this thing is just catnip for geeks.

and being a geek i love that i can use this thing for pretty much anything, anywhere. i can check my email, facebook, twitter (and take pics or videos to upload to these) keep up with rss feeds, watch youtube, check web sites, ebay, play games, find out where i am/what's around me, use as a sat nav, listen to music/podcasts, watch movies/tv shows, check train times, the list goes on.

obviously computers have been able todo pretty much all this stuff for ages but having all this on something pocket sized i just find really cool. infact for a few tasks i'm actually starting to prefer using my iphone over my laptop. some things really do just work better on the iphone. like checking train times for example. i can open up the national rail app, have it find my location and all the nearest train stations and all their train times (and which ones are late). it's just quicker and easier on the iphone than on a pc.

... oh yeah the iphone can also send and receive texts and phone calls!

another couple of useful apps i've started using recently are evernote and read it later. you can use both whether you have an iphone or not. both offer a similar service to the google stuff i mentioned in my useful web apps blog post a while ago but these seem superior (mainly 'cause google won't integrate it's services into google chrome).

the main advantage to using these tools is the changes you make are synced online so they are always up-to-date from wherever you access them from. anyway here's a couple of vid's to show what they do.




yeah she was kinda annoying but that was the best vid i could find to sum up what evernote does. but it's pretty useful and completely free so give it a go.

derren brown's jedi lottery trickery

ok so last night derren brown apparently predicted the lottery result. i'm a big derren brown fan and fascinated by his jedi powers. here's a clip of the live prediction which i actually missed so thanks youtube!

i just found this link posted on derren's own blog of what other people think. looks like these are all the wrong answers to get people talking.

my thoughts? first of all it's obviously a trick. he can't actually predict the lottery result - and even if he could he's not gunna tell the nation. i'm pretty baffled how the live trick was done but derren brown cannot predict the results.

two reasons: not so long ago he did a tv episode titled 'the system' fooling people into thinking he had a guaranteed method to predict horse race results (watch it here if you haven't seen it) which turned out to be a way of bending the truth to susceptible minded people. the other reason is what he says in the first video in this post. first he says he will predict the results (which he appears to have done successfully), then explain how he did it and how you can do it too, but it's the following show title: "how to control the nation" that seems to point to it obviously been fake.

my theory is the whole lottery trick is actually part of the "how to control the nation" show 'cause it's obviously a big way to grab everyone's attention and get them interested. chances are fridays show (where he apparently will tell the nation how to win the lottery) it part of a trick to get the nation todo something they wouldn't normally do to confirm that derren is basically a mind reading jedi who knows what your thinking and can make you do whatever he wants you to.

anyway that's my guestimated prediction. maybe i'm wrong and from friday onwards winning the lottery will become alot easier for the world.

reading festival 2009 round up

[now updated with the bbc's tiny slice of covereage from their highlights]

delayed blogging due to a few weeks of being busy and last week was reading fest weekend! last year was my first year there and it was awesome. so far i've been to v festival 2007, glastonbury 2008, reading 2008 and 2009. v fest just felt like a big lifeless corporate money maker (kinda how you'd expect i guess). glasto is just the king of festivals mostly for it's shear size, atmosphere and diverse lineup. but band wise i'd say for me reading fest is the strongest.

last years headliners (rage, killers and metalica) seemed much bigger to me compared to this years (kings of leon, arctic monkeys and radiohead) but i'm a big kol fan and i like most arctic's stuff so that's good enough for me (sorry, i just don't know enough radiohead to call myself a fan).

probably the best news though was rumors of them crooked vultures doing a secret set on one of the side stages. there were already rumors they'd be there a few weeks before the festival but i managed to confirm the rumors were true on the saturday with the help of an iphone and twitter (it's awesome when twitter comes thru and you find a really good use for it) as they played the leeds festival the day before. so i knew where they'd be on and at what time! perfect!

here's the short clip from bbc's highlights. mcfly!? fuck off.

we got there about four bands before they were due to play so we could get right to the front for them. the plan worked brilliantly and by 4pm we were about two rows from the front - which was worth it even if we did have to put up with patrick wolf's set. by then the place was pretty rammed, the crowd were riled up and there had been alot of moshing to even bands you wouldn't expect it for.

after what felt like forever of setting up and mic checking they finally emerged. everyone went mental. and once they started playing they went even mentaler. as expected they sounded amazing. however in all the mentality my pocketed iphone somehow became depocketed. so if your wondering where my pictures from the weekend are, they are probably smashed up somewhere in that field. here's what it was lost in - there will be a handsome reward if you can spot it. was quite a bazaar experience being equally excited and gutted at the same time. but not to worry, review of my shiny new iphone 3gs is probably coming up sometime soon. plus i managed to score tickets for them at freaking plymouth in december!

after the m.i.a iphone had pissed on my festival poncho it was time to get on with the festival good times. one thing i thought was very weird this year is how the the bands before the headliners (with the exception of kol/kasiers friday night) just felt more powerful and had a better atmosphere than the actual headliners. wtf is up with that!? on saturday the prodigy were fuckin awesome, great band, great songs, the crowd went apeshit (as expected) ... arctic monkeys were fuckin dead on stage, as was the crowd. exactly the same happened on sunday with bloc party rocking the party and radiohead killing it. very weird, but i guess radiohead were never really gunna rock the party.

on friday night we dodged the kasiers and went to see friendly fires on the nme stage instead. wow, what a good call. they were infinitely better. i really like their album so we great to get to see them live. after them it was back to the main stage for some king of leon action. i'd say they were the best headliner even if they were pissed off but i would have liked to hear more from their first two albums. ho hum, t'was great to see them live again though.

and that was about my reading festival. one more thing before i'm done. it's great seeing all these cool bands in one place over one weekend but sometimes you do need something to break up all the music - which is where the alternate stage comes in. we tried to get into the tent on friday to see some of tim minchin's set. i don't know much of his stuff but what i heard was good. on sunday we caught quite a odd choice for reading which was a lecture on watchmen. was interesting to see what was basically a film studies lecture at a music festival, but did help break up the music a bit, so that was cool.

later on that afternoon we managed to catch adam buxton's bug show thing. it wasn't what i was expecting but still very cool. if your new to bug (as i was) he basically shows a series of cool music videos from artists you've never heard of with a few of his own songs/videos mixed in. here's one of my favorites from the ones he showed at reading:

now the song will go round in your head all day again and again and again and again!

ok that'll do. end blog post.

them crooked vultures

i guess this blog is kinda just for sharing whatever i think is something cool or interesting - and it don't get much cooler that this. them crooked vultures are basically a hard rock supergroup consisting of josh homme (from queens of the stonage), john paul jones (from led zeppelin) and dave grohl (from foo fighters/nirvana).

i'm a pretty massive foo fighters fan anyway and dave grohl on drums is pretty fuckawesome anytime. queens of the stoneage rock and led zeppelin... well i'll be honest i don't actually know much of their stuff yet but i'm giving it some more listens :)

so far most of the stuff the band have done has been really secretive. unlike most bands these days nothing has leaked online yet. they've done a few secret gigs so far (so there are a few bad quality videos on youtube) but bar that all we have are these videos.

they've also done this pretty cryptic google earth link that they post on their facebook/twitter pages every now and then. it zooms into where ever they are playing next before any venues have been accounced.

i'm pretty freaking excited to hear whatever these guys do and rumor has it they are supposed to be playing reading festival 2009 (which i also happen to be attending).

awwwwww yeah!

cannot. freaking. wait.

inglorious basterds review

been a while since blogging, should hopefully pick up the pace again soon! so another film from a few of the ones i wanna see has now been seen.

going in i knew it was a pretty long film at 2hrs 45mins which is fine if the movie's good but i still would have liked a couple of trailers, but ho-hum nevermind. and if i'm gunna spend 2hrs 45mins watching someones film quentin's are generally a safe bet. i'd say i'm a big enough fan to watch whatever he makes. it's pretty unanimous that reservoir dogs and pulp fiction are great films and among the favourites among most of my friends and myself. jackie brown... meh it was ok i guess and got a little better towards the end. death proof i did kinda like mostly from the last 30mins. i quite liked kill bill though but i haven't seen it for a while but probably would have been better edited down to one really good film instead of two alright ones. but watching inglorious basterds it did feel kinda like kill bill in a few ways (probably just quentin's style of the 00s). the titles, chapters and i'm sure some of the music was actually from the kill bill soundtrack.

first of all the film feels like it's being really falsely advertised. watching the trailers and tv ad's it's not just a group of guys killing nazis. infact you really don't see alot of the basterds at work (which is kind of a shame 'cause i'd like to see that movie too). the problem is the people who see the trailer and want to see it will get something they weren't expecting and the people put off by the trailer may actually like the film.

the acting was all pretty great. brad pitt and the rest of the basterds were all pretty awesome. mike myers had a cool cameo. but the stand out was probably the rob bryden lookalike christoph waltz as lt. hans landa - the jew hunter. every scene with him was pretty awesome. he's kinda scary and funny but kinda likeable at the same time (for a jew killing nazi anyway, which can't be easy to pull off).

most of the scenes in the film did seem to follow the same pattern of building tension for as long as possible and build to a true taranino style stand off. obviously it's still pretty violent. its pretty gory in places and there's alot more humor than i thought there would be (which is always welcome). for some reason the film kind of reminded me of 'there will be blood' - although i'm not quite sure why yet. could be just from all the extended dialog scenes.

anyway that'll do. review over.

overall, good film! 4 nazi scalps out of 5.

some thoughts on windows 7

this week i made the update from windows vista to windows 7 on the work laptop and overall it does seem pretty good. who'd have thought windows vista could have been improved upon! i should note that i did the update option as opposed to a complete reformat, 'cause i'm lazy like that. the update process took about 4-5 hours but overall there seems to be a pretty good speed increase in booting up and shutting down (which kinda is expected as vista is pretty much the slowest operating system there is).

i've been using it now for a few days and it does seem a definite improvement (again not difficult coming from vista). since buying a macbook (for home) i'm pretty converted to mac os x and given the choice i'd much rather be running that, but from what i've seen it looked pretty complicated to get it installed on most normal pc's and i'm just not that bored enough to get into it that much. so for the time being windows 7 will have todo.

so being a mac user i do like the new windows 7 taskbar 'cause microsoft being microsoft has attempted to copy the mac os x dock. the new windows taskbar takes up much less space and just looks alot nicer. one feature that seems to have been left out is stacks (a mac os x feature) that allows folders placed in the dock to be opened so you can access more from one icon on your dock. there seem to be a few apps out there to get around this and the one i'm trying out is called standalonestack2 (catchy name i know). it's compatible with windows xp, vista and 7 so may be something you wanna check out anyway. for more info and to see it in action check this out.

another cool thing i noticed about the new taskbar is when your copying files it shows the progress bar in the background of the icon. so you can see when your files are done copying without having to minimise everything else.

another slightly changed feature is the "gadgets". basically they are little things you can add to your desktop to get in the way (like a clock, calendar, local weather, news headlines, etc). in windows vista these were limited to the left or right side of your screen but now you can just throw these anywhere on your desktop. it's a useful feature to have if you actually use them but still doesn't compare to the infinitely better mac os x dashboard.

another "big" feature added to windows 7 is the resizing of windows. if you want to compare two websites side-by-side you can just drag the window to the far left or right of the screen and it'll resize it to fit half the screen. once your done you just drag them back and they return to their previous size. kinda cool i guess.

given the few days i've been using windows 7 these seem to be the most noticeable and stand out features - so far anyway. i'm sure/hope there's more under the hood but it definitely seems a worthy update from vista (but then so was windows xp...). it really should be a free upgrade from vista but any way microsoft can make more money they will, and if they can confuse people with all their stupid different versions at the same time all the better. seriously, is anyone gunna make sense of this:

but i guess for the time being this is a free and worthy update from vista so i'd recommend doing it (especially if your already on vista, but maybe if your on xp too and fancy a change). obviously backup your shit first - just incase.

now here's a quick video on microsoft's innovation in windows vista :)

charles trippy's vloggity vlogs?

ok so while browsing youtube i accidentally found one of charles trippy vlog videos (a vlog is a video blog if you hadn't already guessed). this guy has basically decided to keep a kind of video diary for 2 or 3 years, filming and uploading a new video everyday. for most people (including myself) doing this would be insanely boring but i don't know how this guy gets away with seemingly not having a day job (unless this vlog is already paying for itself... or he's just on holiday on the videos i've seen) but after watching a few of his entries i'm a converted fan.

[update: i caught one of his ustream's the other night and turns out he is actually being paid to make youtube videos... pretty sweet gig]

every video of his i've seen so far has always been fun, interesting, cool and funny so i'd say it fits the bill perfectly for something i'd like to post and share on my (primitive in comparison) blog.

here's a preview vid for you to see what you think. in this one he visits the google hq, the empire state building and nintendo world - all in a days "work" for charles trippy which warrants muchos cool points in my book :)

check out and subscribe to his youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/CTFxC

or head to his own site at http://charlestrippy.com - he's on pretty much everything: twitter, facebook and even has his own iphone app to keep you updated on his transpirings :)

new sci-fi trailers

thought i'd do a quick post on a couple of cool new trailers i've only seen recently. first up is the district 9 trailer. this was one of the trailers shown before moon and i think it looks pretty darn good, almost like a half life movie. see what you think:

another trailer shown was for new bruce willis movie, surrogates. i first saw this one before terminator salvation and thought it looked alright. looks like a weird mix between the matrix, i robot and total recall :)

moon review

heard about this movie few weeks ago and it seems reasonably unknown by most. the trailer got my interest by looking like a very retro cool space film more about the isolation of space than baysplosions that comes with most movies that have the budget to be set in space. there really should be more films taking this route than being just another summer blockbuster.

i don't really want to talk about the story too much because the trailer should show you enough to watch to learn more and go see the film. sam rockwell was great (which helps 'cause he's pretty much the only guy in the whole film) and who wouldn't want a talking computer with kevin spacey's voice. to me there felt like a few parallels with desmond from lost, you sort of have to wonder how it's possible living in such an isolated environment for such a long time and if it's even possible (even with future technology aka a talking kevin spacey emoticon computer) without eventually going nuts.

i really liked the retro feel of the whole film and the 2001 space odyssey and the original alien movie vibes. but overall i really enjoyed it, good times!

rhythm heaven on ds

the other day i saw a tv ad for this game and thought it looked kinda interesting. interesting enough to dust off my ds and give it a try. ever since the success of brain training nintendo have been milking the casual gamers dry with any sort of training games they can think of. brain training, maths training, sight training, even bloody face training. and you could argue that this game is the same but not they've cottoned on to all the training titles and in a huge mix up, taken the word 'training' out of the title!

anyway i've been hooked on this game most of this week. it's similar to those wario ware games and like 90% of all ds and wii titles it consists of a load of mini games. you basically have to tap, hold, flick, slide and lift the stylus in time to the music and visuals you see on screen. it might not look as cool as strumming a big plastic guitar (but what is, right?). the game sounds pretty simple and stupid but give it a try 'cause it's really addictive.

brüno review

i'll try and keep this review short and spoiler free 'cause the shock value is part of what makes films like this good, and there is plenty of it. anybody whose seen any of sasha's previous work should know what to expect. he's basically set to offend, and if that doesn't make you laugh some of the people's reactions in this film definitely will.

it did make me think exactly how long comedy like this can go on. obviously it's funny finding where people draw the line and then crossing it. jimmy carr's an expert at it. ricky gervais, ali g, south park, borat. it's all kinda the same formula. but you have to wonder where this will end, and i guess it won't as long as there are stupid people out there to be offended by anything. but i mean in like 20 years time is everyone just gunna be desensitised to it? obviously most of the humor comes from the stupid "p.c gone mad" times we live in where even brainstorming is found offensive, sorry "thought showering". whatever. this is going off topic...

that said, remembering some of the mental images from this movie, we are all a long way off being unoffendable. and that's just the mental images. those long dangling mental images... oh dear. and if that's not proof enough some of the reactions bruno invokes - this guy really knows how to wind people up.

but i can definitely say this is the gayest movie i've ever seen - so stick that quote on your movie poster (that reminds me i still haven't seen brokeback moutain, but from what i've heard it's pretty much the film shown at that movie festival in south park. the one with gay cowboys eating pudding. and that was years before brokeback came out. lawsuit? ... probably not).

but overall this is a fooking fünny movie, even if you do wonder how much of it is scripted. there's probably a few too many borat storyline parallels but i was still laughing all the way through. so watch it ... and then try to forget the mental images.

go see quarantine

i rewatched/loved this movie the other day and can't seem to find many other people that have seen it, so i figured i'd do a quick recommendation. back in 1999 (wow 10 years now) a big fuss was made about the blair witch project for the whole movie being filmed on a hand held camera in a documentary filmmaking style. cloverfield later did the same but one film that flew under some people's radar was a spanish horror film called rec. it's filmed in the same style and tells the story of a news reporter doing a report on the local fire brigade's night shift. it doesn't take long for them to get called out by a report of a woman being trapped in an apartment building. when they get there they break down the door and the woman goes crazy and bites one of the policemen there, like you do. obviously there's some kind of infection so later they get sealed in the apartment building by a hazmat team to contain the infection, and that's all i'll say.

personally i really liked rec, but obviously subtitles aren't for everyone (the lazy) so america being america remade the movie. and surprisingly i liked it more than the original. the two are practically identically shot but with a bigger budget and a different cast - including the awesome jennifer carpenter (dexter's hot sister from the also brilliant tv series dexter).

it's quite interesting that unlike alot of films that get released the general rule is films start good and get worse/boring through the middle or towards the end but this film completely mirrors that. if anything it starts out pretty slow and builds and builds through the whole film as the shit hits the fan and get real intense by the end.

in summary: i love this movie, so give a look if you haven't seen it already.

why twitter?

i've been meaning todo a twitter post for a while now so no time like the present right? i've been using twitter now for a few months. i was reluctant at first but after reading the twitter experiment blog post by david pogue i decided to get involved and start using twitter - and i really like it. but it seems difficult to get new people to get involved, and i can see why. the first thing they always say is it's just another facebook status update and on the surface it's easy to just look at it like that, but when you actually start to use it properly you might start to like it more than facebook (as i now do). however they are difficult to compare as i have different uses for both facebook and twitter.

facebook is mostly good at what it does, keeping you in contact and updated on what your friends are up to, sharing photos/videos, creating events, etc but over time it seems to be getting bloated with useless crap. i don't care about your mafia wars update. i can see why you'd join a group and become a fan of a band you like or event your interested in but i don't care if your a 'fan' of laughing or joined the group 'i need money' ... who the hell doesn't and who doesn't like laughing! it's getting ridiculous. this is somewhere twitter prevails. as soon as you read something by someone your not interested in you can just un-follow them. this instantly kills any spam. plus twitter doesn't even have adverts (how many web sites can say that these days?).

once your on twitter you should get a desktop app for it 'cause they are just better than using the web site. these allow you to get instant updates from the people you follow. you can set them up to update as often as you like and they give you a small msn style popup when new tweets are received. probably the most popular is tweetdeck. you can download it windows, mac or iphone for free via their website or the app store. one of tweetdeck's coolest features is the ability to create search columns. so if i wanted to keep up to date with say half life 2 episode 3 just create a search column and you'll receive live updates from anyone whose tweets contain 'half life 2 episode 3' - even people i don't already follow.


tweetdeck is good and has most of the features you need from a twitter client but i find it does take over my screen a bit too much for my liking so i use twhirl. it uses a smaller window and actually displays incoming tweets as they come in on the bottom right of your screen. twhirl is available for windows and mac on their web site.

i should also mention tweetie which is a good app on both mac and iphone. you have to pay for the full version but you can download a free version on mac with adverts but there are loads of different twitter apps out there so just search around and use the one best suited to you.

one of the most useful features for me is just having live updates from web sites i visit regularly. basically you can use twitter as an rss feed from news/games/movie sites, anything your interested in and receive updates as soon as they go onto their web site.

then there's obviously celebrities. alot of tv and radio shows now are using twitter as a way to communicate with their audience. it's also pretty cool following people within the industry, like someone working on the effects in a film or working on a game still in production.

i mainly use it for sharing links. it's just easier to put something i want to share on twitter than individually sending everyone i know an instant message. plus on twitter it'll reach more people because twitter is open to everyone (not just people you know like on facebook).

anybody can search twitter for anything. any topic you want to see what people are talking about. if you want to see what people are saying about a certain film, or a specific web site or event you can just search and see what people are saying about it. you can also use hashtags which work in the same way. you basically put a # in front of a word which then makes it a searchable link. if you see any weird words with a # before them check out wthashtag.com - it's like a wikipedia of hashtags and will tell you what they mean.

anyway that about covers everything i wanted to say on twitter. it's not for everyone but it is for me, so i recommend you give it a go. i guarantee there will be plenty of people/web sites you'll want to follow - so if your not already, get on twitter.

podcast playlist

well i've managed to add some cool new mp3 player widgets to the sidebar of the blog now. one of them has replaced the flashplayer for the band covers (which i've also added a song to) and i thought i'd use another to share any other cool audio goodness i find online. don't worry i won't have them autoplay when you visit (cos i hate that, yes i'm looking at you myspace!).

i figured i'd start by just sharing some podcasts i listen to, which at the moment mainly consist of adam & joe on 6music.

if you havn't seen or heard any adam & joe (where the HELL have you been for the past 10 years!) give them a listen and see what you think - it's one of my favorite podcasts. if you are already a fan of their current 6music podcast you should definitely listen to their old xfm podcasts still avalible for FREE on itunes if you haven't for whatever reason.

another favorite is the ricky gervais podcast. these are probably the funniest podcasts out there so i can't recommend them enough. the first series is also still free on itunes so give them a listen when you've got time. they've done about 4 more series since, which they started charging money for (but they can be found online elsewhere if you look hard enough).

now a couple for lost fans. first one is kinda obvious: the official lost podcast. the shows executive producers damon lindelof and carlton cuse answer questions sent in from lost geeks. being a pretty big lost fan i'm interested in any extra clues on offer from anyone working on the show so this is all good.

the official podcast is good for most casual lost fans but if you wanna get really hardcore try listening to the o.d.i lost podcast. these are some pretty big lost geeks who will analyze any and everything from the show and also share some interesting theories. if your hardcore you should like, if your casual or just not a lost fan this is probably not recommended :)

that'll do for podcasts for now. try out this weeks adam & joe podcast in the sidebar on the right and keep an eye out for any new stuff i add to the playlist.

what podcasts do you listen to? leave a comment below or @reply me on twitter.

in an unrelated matter, celebrity deaths have been all the rage this week so for no reason here's jeff goldblum, he will be missed:

glastonbury 2009 round up

the first and arguably the biggest music festival of the year just ended this weekend and it looked pretty awesome as always. i didn't actually go this year (two main reasons: the lineup for the most part didn't appeal much to me and i had no way of getting there or back) but i did go last year and had a really great time. glastonbury seems to be famous for it's weather issues (i don't understand why they don't move the festival to july/august time) but it seems both this year and last year seem to have been pretty varied but mostly dry, from what i saw anyway and i saw alot.

i spent most of the weekend watching the bbc coverage which i really can't fault. 6music had full coverage all weekend just playing live music from the festival with an extra weekend dose of adam and joe - 6music ftw! they also showed a wide selection of all the good bands and the stuff i wasn't really interested in on bbc 2 and 3, but with the red button stuff too at least i could pick and choose who i wanted to see and when. the only way the bbc could have done a better job would be to replace the retarded hosts (bring back adam and joe!) or do away with the hosts altogether and just play some bands. nobody gives a fuck edith! nobody is watching this for your awkward "banter" with reggie dickhead yates! get back to the music already!

one of the particular highlights for me would have to be pendulum. i saw them live last year at the reading festival and that was a pretty incredible experience. i wouldn't even say i'm that big of a pendulum fan but live they are immense! really get the crowd going, check them out:

quick list of other bands there that i thought looked really good live: bloc party, yeah yeah yeahs, kasabian, prodigy, fleet foxes, the ting tings, maximo park, franz ferdinand, doves and friendly fires. that said some of these i'll be seeing at reading festival this year :)

one of the things that put me off going this year most was the headliners. don't get me wrong a diverse lineup is probably one of glastonbury's biggest strengths but this year's just didn't appeal much for me. except one.

blur was probably the first band i actually liked when i was young so i was looking forward to seeing what they'd do. i know alot of their songs but there's so many you forget and seeing them performed live it just looked awesome. they played 24 songs in total and ended on the universal.

probably not my favorite blur song but that's the only clip i could find :)

to see more of glastonbury be sure to check out more on the iplayer while it's online or i think it'll be on bbc 3 during the week too.

after seeing the highlights i'd say i'm pretty set on going next year regardless of the lineup (which normally isn't announced till the tickets sellout anyway). plus i think next year is the 40th glastonbury festival so they should have something special planned.

see ya there! :D

transformers poo review

where do i begin... well the bad springs to mind, so let's start with that.
it's kind of depressing that in this day and age (i'm not trying to sound old) something like this can reach the masses. when i think about the whole process that movies have to go through to actually reach cinemas worldwide - all the script writers, editors, the director, the cast, the effects guys, test audiences, everyone listed in the credits - at no point did anyone put their hand up and say 'heeeeeeeeey, wait a minute! this part sucks!'. there's so much here that i would hope anyone would have picked up on any of the crap that went into this movie. don't get me wrong i probably couldn't do better (...actually maybe i could, but another time) but c'mon studios! sort your god damn filtering process out and save yourself alot of money!

i admit i've never been a fan of transformers (bit before my time grandad) but at least the first movie managed to keep my attention. and at least in michael bays other work i remotely gave a shit about the characters (i still love con air and the rock dispite nic's acting talents). throughout this movie i couldn't care less if any or all of them got killed off - in fact through the second half i was kinda preying for some sort of t.w.m.d (yes that's transformers weapon of mass distruction aka 'the matrix key' or whatever it was called in this movie) would just go off and kill them all so i could go walk off my numb ass and forget this movie sooner.


it was also quite funny how sexist the movie seemed. there's pretty much one girl in the whole movie.

a woman? yeah a woman. and yeah megan fox is pretty hot if your into that fake looking slutty type whose hobbies include bending over bikes and jiggling away from explosions in slow motion. oh and just for something to keep the female viewers interested we'll add some lovey dovey, badly written scenes with the exact same greenday song playing and slot them randomly into the film.

the jar jar binks fans out there will enjoy the two useless autobot twins 'cause i bet no one else watching this movie found them annoying right?

"hmm i'll tell you what this script needs... dog fucking!" ... yeah whose weirdo idea was that? and more importantly how was this not vetted out (haha vetted, you see! cos they are dogs! i dun a funny! maybe neutered out would have been better, nevermind whatever).



questions that spring to my mind during the movie:
why leave these t.w.m.d's in existence, let alone on earth?
why would these advanced aliens even stay on earth just to blow our shit up?
how useless and futile anything the humans do is. why even get involed? it's not like you can stop them.
how shia's prision break style disguise (a baseball cap) is gunna fool anyone?
why not roll the credits hours ago and save the world some time?
why am i still sat here watching this?
who would win in a fight: a monkey with a stapler or an invisible pelican?

well that's the bad, now the good...
urrrmm the special effects... umm yep that's it, and i can't fault it there but there's only so much cg your eyes can take until your desensitized to it. it's kinda like when toy story first came out - really impressive at first but about 30mins in the cg is just a given and the script needs to take over (toy story: win, transformers 2 ... epic fail).

oh and doctor claw from inspector gadget doing the voice for the satellite decepticon, that was quite funny.

anyway if your gunna watch something at the cinema this week i'd recommend you invest your stock in drag me to hell, the hangover or star trek (if you still haven't seen it) and save terminator salvation and transformers 2 for a dvd, i'm sure they'd make good coasters.

it's also worth checking out this review. it's probably the best review i've seen for it online :)

curing boredom, one game at a time

well i'm back at work, bored. but i thought i'd pass on a couple of games i'm currently addicted to between my times of of back breaking labour. popcap have been making addictive casual mini games for a long time now - most popular probably being bejeweled (and everyone's played that in one form or another by now right?). i even actually bought feeding frenzy on the xbox live arcade when it came out (that reminds me, i probably should play some more of that and get my monies worth).

anyway here's the big two i'm hooked on at the mo...

first up is plants vs zombies.

this is another one of those tower defence games. when a horde of zombies comes a-knocking you do the only logical thing you can ... plant seeds in your garden that shoot them ... yeah, i dunno what the makers of this game were thinking but don't be fooled! this game is very addictive. different plants attack in different ways (as all zombie hating gardeners know). there are many different types of zombies with different strengths and weaknesses so choose your seeds carefully (the michael jackson zombie can be a bitch - if you don't put him down quick enough his dancing will bring even more zombies to your door).

you can download the trial or full game on their official site (or elsewhere if you look hard enough).

the second game is peggle.

this is another popcap game and it's freaking addictive! the concept is fairly simple. it's a peg and ball game. you got 10 balls you have to use to get rid of orange pegs by hitting them. there's also a ball catcher at the bottom of the screen that constantly moves from left to right - if it catches your ball you get to use it again. there's also loads of different power ups you can get by hitting the green pegs and bonus points are given for hitting purple ones. if it sounds boring you need to give it a try or see it in action to comprehend the addiction.

this game is currently on pc, xbox, nintendo ds, iphone and on some ipods.

again you can find it on their official site (or from other interwebs).

and just as a bonus i'll recommend one more. this one's probably a bit older so you may have already tried it. if not, try this on for size.

world of goo

this is a physics based game where the idea is to build structures from goo balls to reach a goal. sort of lemmings style but with more creativity by making your own ways out. alot of it is trial and error until you figure out what you should be doing (or just search youtube for a solution to the game your stuck on).

you can get this on pc or download it on your wii.

as before you can locate it on their official site (alternatively via other means).

and just one more to finish on 'cause i've just thought of it (after all the structure building talk)...

everyone should check out http://fantasticcontraption.com 'cause this one is just web based (so not downloading/installing) plus it's free!

the object is to build something to carry the pink ball into the goal area. again this one has alot of trial and error gameplay but every level has loads of different ways to complete so give it a try.

it's also worth checking out some of the ones the pro's have made on youtube - they are pretty crazy.

anyway check them out and lemme know what you think.