Gaming, Music, The Internet, Whatever….

This time of year E.g. the first nine months of the year are usually a pretty barren spell with regards gaming; the games industry has/had become so obsessed with mimicking the film industry that it believed that the only way that it could actually make any money was by releasing all it’s major games in one three month period. Of course, the film industry, to a certain degree, grew out of this a few years ago and it would seem that the games industry is slowly following suit.

Mainly in no small part to Modern Warfare 2. Predictions that it was going to sell “shitloads” proved to be accurate and most of the major games that were scheduled for launch late last year quickly decided that going up against Infinity Wards behemoth wasn’t for them. So instead we now have a wonderful situation where in the early stages of 2010, we have AAA games being released on a monthly basis (though why the American Automobile Association is doing releasing games I’ve no idea.

Two of them, Perfect Dark Arcade and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, were two of these games and I must admit that I am looking forward to them, particularly as both series hold a place in my heart.

Perfect Dark Arcade is a semi-remake of the N64 original and as you can see in the vid below, it finally lives up to some of the promise it showed 10 years ago. I played my original cartridge of it recently and lets say once the rose tinted spectacles came off, things weren’t as I remembered them.

I was looking forward to this before; Almost obscenely looking forward to this now. Arrives on Wednesday for a not at all obscene £7.

Next up is Metal Gear Solid : Peace Walker. Now my feelings on this were the complete opposite; the last PSP MGS (yes, it’s acronym central from here on in) didn’t inspire me at all, particularly when it came to controlling the camera. But this gameplay video looks like a hell of a lot of fun. It’s obvious that Kojima’s direction is helping to firm up the gameplay a lot. And that soundtrack? Want a copy of that on CD ASAP. Certainly makes a change from the endlessly looped 2 minute tracks that were in Portable Ops (another major annoyance I had with the game). So very much a want now from me.

Metal Gear Solid : Peace Walker is out late May, and hopefully in time for my birthday. Which would be nice.

The last week can pretty much be summed up in one word: snot. Managed to pick up a cold last weekend and let me tell you trying to fight a cold while trying to starve yourself of food is something not to be tried (new diet is on hold until the weekend now).

One thing that has been keeping me entertained through the phlegm and the coughing has been the whole Conan O’Brien/Jay Leno/NBC Clusterfuck. And after carefully evaluating every side of the story, I think the big winner is clearly David Letterman…

Yes, Dave, I get the impression you are enjoying all this QUITE a lot.

Hey, if you can’t beat them, join them.

And should you be one of the few people who doesn’t get the quote…

Many, many better fake Davey Cameron posters than mine at mydavidcameron.com

Making jokes about there still being music vids on MTV is kind of old hat, a bit like making jokes about how almost all the things in Ironic by Alanis Morisette aren’t actually ironic (though that hasn’t stopped Ed Byrne but still.) Anyway, while browsing said music channels I stumbled across the video below. At first, I couldn’t actually believe that it was for real. But it sadly is.

I like to put this video in the same bracket as 2Girls1Cup; see how long you can stand of it before you have to turn it off. And I’m really looking forward to seeing the Analytics for who comes to site after entering 2girls1cup and Justin Bieber….

Despite it’s clear awfulness, and me being me, I just needed to know who this kid was so if there was even the slightest chance I could hear any of his music again I could turn it off ASAP. So, let’s get the basics out of the way first.

Justin Drew Bieber (is a Canadian pop/R&B singer.

Oh, that explains a lot. A CANADIAN R&B singer. Following on from the great, errm, thingy. Who of course followed on from, errm, the world famous someone or other. Seriously. He’s a Canadian doing R&B music. Don’t really need to add much more than that, do I? Ok, maybe I do.

He began his professional career on YouTube, where he was discovered by his future manager, Scooter Braun.

Yes, I’m sure as a twelve year old posting videos of himself on YouTube he had lots of people offering to manage his “music career”. That and come round to offer him Werthers Originals and look at the new puppies he got the other day.

Braun flew Bieber to Atlanta, Georgia, to consult with Usher and soon signed a record deal with Island.

That’s right ladies and gentleman, the great label that gave us U2, Grace Jones, The Orb, DJ Shadow and many, many, many others is now reduced to offering us 15 Year old Canadians doing R&B produced by Usher. How the mighty and so on. Now, before I get lots of angry comments from tweenagers complaining that I’m missing the point (something I learnt last year when a certain reality TV personality became ill and later died) I should add that his Wikipedia entry claims that “he taught himself how to play the piano, drums, guitar, and trumpet” which is a hell of a lot more than I could play at his age (the recorder notwithstanding) and it’s obvious from this vid that he can play the guitar a lot better than I can.

It’s just sad to see someone who clearly has a talent having it wasted doing fuck awful R&B, even more so when he’s clearly one of the whitest CANADIAN teenagers I’ve ever seen. Not that I have seen alot of them but you get my drift. I guess the gist of this post has turned from an angry rant about the state of music and more to a rant in the way the music industry loves to take genuine talent and set about fucking it up. The kid can clearly play so let him, rather than wasting it on committee produced R&B that makes him more Vanilla Ice than JT.

God I’m old.

So 2010 then, the year of giant baby feotus’s in space, giant black monoliths devouring the planet of Jupiter to help speed up the evolution of nearby Europa and the subsequent appearance of two giant suns in the sky.

Yes, I’m sure someone has done the whole 2010 thing alot better than I have but it’s difficult as a Sci-Fi fan NOT to love either the book, and dare I say it, the film. Like so much great Science Fiction, and indeed Fiction generally, it fires up the imagination so well. Which kind of leads me to todays ramblings. Every New Year starts off in the same way; resolutions, promises, efforts to improve oneself that of course never actually a) last or b) improve yourself.  Even a cursory glance down below will see that the efforts to improve myself last year managed to stay in place for a whole 6 days before the whole thing fell apart, as it so usually does.

2009 wont exactly be remembered as a vintage year but it certainly wasn’t bad either; just a bit meh. Ok maybe not meh, definitely a bit bland though. Why? Do you even care? Not if the Google Analytics are anything to go by. I guess 2009 and the other 9 years that belonged to the noughties (thanks The Daily Mail!) were one where I probably manned up a bit.

Perhaps not as much as a certain Tim Maughan has proposed some people do but certainly looking back at the way I was in December 1999 and where I am now, at least as a person, is quite a shock.

I still don’t feel like I’ve found my “calling” as yet but as a person I feel far more learned than I did ten years ago. I wouldn’t claim for one second that the last ten years have been all smiles and sunshine, cause it quite clearly hasn’t but I wouldn’t change any of it for a second. And if we do manage to survive past December 2012 and live to see 2013, then I do think that the next 10 years have the potential to be very, very special. Will it? Find out in about 3644 days when I next update the site. You know, if I’m not busy.