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: