"There's a pileup of lesbians on the motorway!"

I'm really no good at updating this blog am I? I was supposed to update this quite a while back now, but due being so stupidly busy (and having stupidly late nights) the past week or so, I haven't got round to it. So now, here's a rundown of when I went to London... over a week ago. I'll get to the subject of the blog title in a bit.

So yes, on 16th May I buggered off to London with some mates to see a j-rock band called girugämesh. First though, and the most obvious stop for me in London, was a quick trip to Camden Town. Now, if you're into rock or alternative styles, then Camden is the place for you. Peronally, it's my favourite part of London, there's so much to see and buy. My wallet now weeps. Naturally, we made a stop into a shop Called Sai Sai. It sells clothes based on the Visual Kei style, a form of Japanese music, blended with a unique fashion style (that's sort of gothy, and heavy on image.) Needless to say, I spent a ton there. They also have a shop over the road from there, the name of which escapes me now, but check them out if you're into that kind of thing!

After a quick drink, we headed to Cyberdog. It's more heavily based around fashion relating to EBM music, Cyber Goth and raving, butI'd deffinitely recommend a visit purely for the experience. As you walk in, there's two suspended platforms with two dancers dancing in them. An escolator trip downstairs, and it might as well be a nightclub that sells clothes/fashion accessories, seriously! UV lighting is used throughout, giving it a high atmopshere, and there's EBM music blasting out the speakers, with a DJ plahing the tracks. Did I mention there's a few pannels that light up behind them? It's brilliant! The prices were a bit ott though, so we left without purchasing much.

The gig was slowly approaching, so we decided to get some food and have a quick chill out. We found an excellent Chinese Cafe, which I can't remember the name of, which is a shame, as I'd highly recommend it. I had a really nice cocktail that had about three types of alcohol in it, and strawberry. And we all shared a few courses. If you're ever in Camden, it's just past the main market, heading away from the underground station. After paying, we headed to the gig.

girugämesh - Islington Academy, London. 16.05.2009

We made it in good time, a few minutes after we arrived, the band came on. There was no support, or any of that nonsense, so it ws straight to the action! We were quite far back, but it was a smallish venue, so that was fair enough.

It has to be said, they put on an excellent show! The crowd was intense, they were going absolutely mental! The band really kept the crowd going, and the action only slowed down during the slower, more melodic songs. For some reason, they played a few of these slower songs later on, which seemed a tad random, surely mixing the setlist up a bit would have worked better? There were a mix of tracks ranging from thier newer material, to a few older ones. Even if things got a little sluggish, they still had the majority of the crowd under thier control.

However, there was one huge problem, the gig finished way to early. They arrived on stage sometime after 7, and the set ended abnormally early, just before 8.30. They could have easily squeezed in about 4/5 more tracks, and that would have been prerfect. The crew spent a while setting up for the encore too... which ended up being a mere one song. Don't get me wrong, it was still a great show, just at a ticket price of £20, you'd expect a tad more for your money.

Setist

INTRO
Break Down
ULTIMATE
FREAKS
Angry Juice
ALIVE
CRAZY-FLAG
Dance Rock Night
Shadan
Enishi
Crime -tsumi
Gamble
DEAD WORLD
puzzleishtar
Patchwork
Vermillion
Smash!!
evolution
--------------
shining

Ross Noble - Things. Birmingham Hippodrome 24.05.2009

If you know Ross Noble, then the reason for the blog title is clear, he is completely out of his mind, but in a hilariously good way! This is easily one of his best tours, he had a lot of great material to work with, all executed in Ross Noble perfection; he had evryone in stiches, me included. There's way too many things (no pun intended) to list that he covered, but trust me, it was all fantastic. It was great to hear he now has a daughter (and all the hilarious shenanigans to do with looking after her), so conradulations to him and his wife! Sadly, his house burnt down, but, as he put it, he's now "techincally married to a homeless person", so at least he could joke about it. Fair play to the man. If you're seeing him on tour at any point, you're in for a treat! If not, then just get the Things DVD when it's eventually released. It's worth it, trust me.

Zombies ate my... Garden?

Time for a very gaming related blog entry methinks...

Before talking about the main topic today, there's a sad issue in the gaming world at the moment; the closure of 3D Realms. They opened in 1987, and developed one of the most iconic characters in video gaming history; Duke Nukem. However, the production of thier last game, Duke Nukem Forever took 13 years, and simply cost them too much. It never saw the light of day. It's truly sad to see an old development studio go down, and a project that's matured for well over a decade go down with them. Of course, the publisher, 2K games still hold the rights to it, so they might pass it on to one of thier other developers to finish off. They're idiots if they don't tbh, Duke is a franchise with a big following. To be fair, 3D Realms should have got thier arses into gear a lot faster, so I guess they had it coming to them! Still sucks to see them go though.

Right, now onto the main topic, a little game I've been playing and couldn't resist purchasing it. the game? Plants Vs. Zombies!

The basic concept is that you have a horde of zombies heading towards your house and you have to stop them by planting flowers and all manner of garden life on your lawn. Some take on offensive roles, whilst others are used for defence. These range from various types of 'Pea Shooters', that (as the name suggests) fire peas out of thier mouths, to the explosive 'Cherry Bomb' and the aptly named 'Wal-Nut' that acts as a barricade. Plants need points in the form of 'sun power' to be planted. In day time levels sun falls from the sky, but there's also sunflowers that generate thier own sun, clicking the 'sun' adds to your points. With that, and all the plants that need placing, this game quickly becomes a real cick-fest.

There's also many zombie types that you'll encounter. As well as normal zombies, there's zombies with traffic cones on thier heads (for extra defence), faster Olympic running zombies that can pole-vault over the first plants they come accross and zombie divers that can swim to your house via your pool later on.

The game boasts 26 types of zombies and 49 plant types. Mixing and matching the correct plants for each round makes this a very tactical challange. Also, with many upgrades available, via cash collected in the levels, there's a lot of insentive to play numerous times to get everything.

Yes, it is as insane as it sounds, developers Pop Cap must have been smoking a certain type of plant whilst developing this. It's the most bizzare game I've had the pleasure of playing for a long time. Although it's obviously a desktop tower defence style game, which there are many of, it's presented with such finesse that it feels fresh. It's colourful, bright and... fun! Yes, you know, fun? Too many games take themselves way to seriously these days, so it's really good to see a game that dares to be silly. Infact, it's silly to the point where it not only crosses the line, but it sprints past it and disappears into the horizon.

My only complaint is that it's a tad easy, but then I'm not even half way through the 50 levels at the moment, so that could change. Plus there's a puzzle mode and mini-games to unlock, which is enough to keep anyone entertained for a while. And the best part? You can get this game for £6.99 via Steam. That price is such a steal for a great game like this.

If you're looking for some silly fun then this is your game. Pop Cap are well known for thier other titles, Peggle and Bejewled, but this game is truly thier crowning moment. This boasts a huge ammount of originality, and is extremely addictive. I'll deffinitely be playing this for months to come!

Steam Demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/3592/
Buy, Via Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/3590/

"And pigs would fly..."

Woah, it's been a week since I last updated this blog! I really need to get my arse into gear. Naturally, there's not better way to return to a blog than with a rant, oh yes! I've arrived to this certain debate pretty late, but I've been trying to ignore it. However, its pissed me off too much now, so here we go folks!

Unless you've been living under a rock, or you've been avoiding the news, you might not know that there's a "crisis" going on at the moment. Then again, you probably have heard about it, because everyone and thier bloody dog's heard about this! I'm, of course, talking about this so-called Swine Flu pandemic. Yes, we've all been told to stay alert, they're going to leaflet bomb us, and if we don't comply we're apparently all going to die. What a load of crap.

To date there's been about, what, 28 confirmed cases in the UK? That's nothing! I'd only start panicing if the figures reach quad digits. Yes, it is bad that this so-called virus is airborne, but there's no need to start repenting and calling it the aporkalypse (sorry) just yet. I agree it could spread, which would be bad news, but see that key word, could? If you've got the bloody flu, of course you're going to stay at home! Normal flu is bad enough anyway and can be just as contagious. The government was right to warn people; but leaflet bombing us, the constant warnings and, naturally, the press being all over it? Bloody hell, chill out people! It's being contained well enough at the moment, we're more likely to choke on peanuts than catch this virus! Oh, and there are people surviving it, so it's not as fatal as it's being made out to be.

Of course, the government don't want it spreading, but it's obvious why they're over-hyping it so much; the credit crunch. The crunch is getting everyone down, so what better way to distract population from it than the possibility of a pandemic? The government have done a pretty shit job the past few years and should have done more to prevent the crunch from even happening, so this is a good way for them to cover thier own arses. Ultimately, when this virus is "contained", the government will get all the glory because they "looked after us." Yeah, right... nice try guys.

I actually like a theory that my friend's Dad came up with; that this is just an outbreak of normal flu, but it's being hyped as something totally new. Think about it, if something new comes around that seems threatening, it's a lot more scary than something that already exists. I take this theory with a pinch of salt, but it's certainly something to think about.

However, I could end up eating my own words in a few weeks/moths/whenever, and it could become a pandemic. Fair enough. At the end of the day, it just feels like bullshit propaganda right now, a scare to keep us in our places and to make us forget about how the government are screw ups. It's certainly mysterious timing, given the state of the world at the moment and it's too obvious to just be a simple coincidence.

Feel free to post your own thoughs in the comments....