This blog is dead. It is an ex-blog

Moved to drymouth.tumblr.com

I work with Optimus Prime

He has too much tech

Morrissey's NME litigation

Morrissey can be an awkward bloke, no question. And his reluctance to explain his lyrics combined with the brief love England, skinhead image he portrayed has meant the Morrissey is racist campaign has been boiling on for nigh fifteen years now.

I'm not a fan of the NME and so am biased towards pretty much any attack of eloquence upon them. But I think I'm justified in feeling slightly sick at their attempt to dredge up the spurious racism allegations against Morrissey. I enjoyed reading his reply to NME, especially his criticism of the '"cheers mate, got pissed last night, ha ha" interviews that clutter every single issue of the "new" NME'. Reminded me of Kele's attack on Oasis making 'stupidity hip'.

They claim to be inspired by the Beatles but, and this so saddens me, they have failed to grasp that the Beatles were about constant change and evolution. Oasis are repetitive Luddites.

It seems that whenever a band dares to say anything remotely intelligent (not preaching, make no mistake I don't think every band should be Bono. Shudder) they're either at best mocked, at worst accused of something like this.

Even the Guardian mocked Kele (Bloc Party attacks Oasis with thesaurus) for saying something that I believe really needed to be said about the dumbing down of British music.

I look forward to a typical NME attack on the 'past it' artist.

How to make me quickly irate

Can what? Urinate in a public place? Burn yourself in a religious protest? Insert graffiti into a sign that is practically begging for it? Damn, where's my pen...

Hoa Nails

I'm not shoa I want hoa nails?

It's A Knockout

Spent Monday running, jumping and wheezing in a publicity affair promoting the new Wii Mario and Sonic Go To The Olympics. Like child's party meets sports day it was compered by Stuart Hall himself who kept a running commentary through megaphone sometimes breaking out in some fierce MC-ing. At least, I hope the stuttering effect stemmed from intentional means.

The suits smelt of vomit - I suspect they were the original 70s Its A Knockout Props, saturating with generations of overwhelmed child's excretion.

Team Mario won with able help from the Stuff boys and some retarded flapping about from me.



More photos at UK Resistance. Mario doesn't look so hot cos someone got overexcited from the winning team, forgot an actual person was inside the costume and whacked him over the head with a bottle of prize champagne.

New toys...

Back after over a month of work is far too long in blogging land. After playing Bestival on the Isle of Wight, I quickly found myself in a warzone. NATO forces play war games twice a year in the North Atlantic on an exercise called Neptune Warrior and I was fortunate enough to be invited along to play simulation embedded press on the warships. From futuristic scanning devices used by crack boarding forces to full Lynx helicopters, there were enough big toys to keep me happy and enough intrigue around the excellently detailed faux political scenario to keep me in awkward questions, "just what is an acceptable level of collateral damage" for the whole thing. In fact, it was a journalist's dream and brought me to an understanding and an admiration of the people that make up our armed forces that I think very few people have. It's much too tempting to look at the whole bulk as some brutish beast of political power, whereas the sharp and thinking people I met are a world away from the either lunkish or sycophantic visions of a military person one usually encouters. Although, it might be just the navy lads and officers I met.

While I was away I celebrated my birthday, ably helped by HMS Lancaster's stellar officers (wearing my cap as I type!). Orange and I are to part company later this week - we're back connected but it conks out every two days and I have to manually reset the modem and change all my IP addresses. So to treat myself, a new phone and contract, sod the cancellation charges.

BUT OH THE CHOICE! After the iphone brick debacle, I had a rather sour taste in my mouth about the jesus phone. But then today I finally touched one and boy did it seep into my conciousness, the smooth lines, the shiny screen, the mmmmmmmulti touch. And yet, nags the practical killjoy in my head, wouldn't the N95 be a much more sensible choice? 3g, 5mp camera, open to all the natty little third party apps I can shake a brick at. I've got two weeks until I'm paid. Two long, dark weeks of soul searching....

Course, I could just go and blow it all on a new processor refitted Xbox 360 (codename falcon so much awesome)... Halo 3 and ROCK BAND out later this year.

Sleep on it, I think.

Decisions, decisions

The Xbox 360 Elite is out. For one hundred squids cheaper than the ps3 it's got a cavernous 120gb drive. But no HD DVD player to the ps3's Blu Ray drive and no wi-fi.

I've been in a quandary of indecision about my next console purchase. I have been of the Xbox camp for two years now, forgoing the pleasures of Guitar Hero until its FAR TOO LATE release for the 'box and various other silly, girly, party-type games. Why? One reason, Halo. And the release of Halo 3 on my birthday, Sep 26 *hint hint*, has seen me planning my Halo 3 themed party for so many months I'm not allowed to speak of it in front of my nearest and dearest for fear of ear aching retribution.

And yet, and yet... I'm so confused and let down by the absence of an HD player. Why, Microsoft, why? You could have made the biggest splash by coming down on the HD side of the DVD wars and regained some of the awesome gaming credibility that's started to erode since 2005.

Only Halo 3 is keeping this relationship together. However, if anyone wants to know what to get me for my birthday, I could end up having both...

Cannabis in Kenton, shock horror...

An old report from the Wesminster News Online archives with me in 'serious reporting' mode. A lack of tech stories that day, I believe. Watch for the naughty edit at the end...

At least someone's watching me

My bedroom review of the new O2 Cocoon phone got two of linkage. One from google vids, obviously, but another from the O2 Cocoon blog.

Generally I like the phone, especially its design, so very 80s with blue LEDs - and everyone knows blue LEDs are so much awesome.

But the storage is only 2GB (upgradable to 4) and that's just not good enough these days.