We've Been Expecting You
So last night I had this dream that I was living at home, or I suppose my parents house. And it was just me and my bro, but oddly I still had the job I have now and I had to get up at 4.20am (which I did in real life too, to do deliveries to King's Lynn) except in the dream I didn't wake up until 6.58, by which point I should have made my first two or three deliveries. In my dream I leapt out of bed in a panic, grabbing for my work phone to call the boss and explain I was late and my brother said "it's nearly seven" unhelpfully from his room (which oddly was his room as a kid, the box room, not the room he occupies now which was my room when we were kids). Then I woke up with my heart pounding exactly as in the dream to discover it was... just a few minutes before my alarm was due to go off. So that was how my day started.
Actually other than that it went okay, and weather wise it's been beautiful, so I've little to complain about there, although even with the early finish I seem to have managed to do not one single thing this afternoon. I've got another two days of these early deliveries, so by Wednesday I'm gonna be knackered, sleeping in the afternoon, and possibly hallucinating. Yay. I do love not having either enough sleep or enough caffeine!
Mariachi Hero!
Nearly unlocked everything in Rocks the 80s, not that it's much of a challenge (okay, a few of the songs are annoying, but they're not exactly difficult) and it's not like I've been playing it non-stop. No, I was inspired to re-install and Diablo II this morning, and for all that it's aged graphically (and the past seven or eight years haven't been kind) the core gameplay is still more addictive than crack! Awesome.
So, I've been thinking about other types of Guitar Hero. I mean it's all very well concentrating on rock guitar, but we all know that it's not the be all and end all of guitar music. I for one would like to see something more soulful and funky (the guitar part in the Isley Bros' Who's That Lady? would be fucking AWESOME to play!) and let's chuck in some p-funk while we're at it ('cos let's face it, Bootsy Collins is a guitar god). Then what about acoustic? I think mariachi style would be astonishingly brilliant, and maybe even do a country version? My point is that it's time for Guitar Hero to break the mould and go in unexpected directions! I don't think World Tour is gonna do that of course, it looks content to ape Harmonix Rock Band which seems oddly pointless, but there you go, I guess nobody ever lost money playing it safe. Did they?
I Rock!
As mentioned the other day I was faced with the dilemma of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Ultimately, the "more Guitar Hero" argument won, and I promptly bought Guitar Hero Rocks The 80s. Although I've nearly unlocked all the songs already (only the last tier to go, playing on Hard mode natch) I'm not even slightly disappointed. Even though I've heard of only a fraction of the tunes in this ediiton, probably 'cos they were big in America not Europe, the selection is still almost uniformly excellent and a whole heap of fun to play (certainly hugely more enjoyable than GH3, which admittedly has some great stuff on it, but you do really have to look!). I was of course especially looking forward to one of my all time fave tunes from The Vapors, the awesomely excellent Turning Japanese. I've been listening to that song for nearly 30 years now (god, and I remember when it was new and subversive! Those were the days, when I was a lad and you'd listen to John Peel of an evening. Happy, carefree days!) and I know it so well I'm four starring it on Expert already! Ah happy.
Oh and did I mention earlier that Diablo III is on it's way? Think I'm gonna need a new PC for that, but it's probably a good year away yet so I've plenty of time to save up!
It Is Time For Shedding Our Enemies Blood!
Well, I was extremely annoyed this morning. I went to the Orange store in town to get my phone switched only to be told that they don't do that in the store. I questioned why that was, as I'd bought the phone from them and as it had ceased to work they were my first point of call, but I was told, rather condescendingly, to go home, call customer service and they'll have another one sent out to me. I'll admit their aftersales care left a lot to be desired, it seems a simple enough task to ask them to do what is required right there and then rather than telling me to do it myself and stop bothering them, so I spoke to the manager and questioned the companies after sales service and the actual purpose of the Orange store if they can't do anything whatsoever to help me with my problem with an Orange phone. It's sorted now (I did have to phone customer service, I knew they weren't gonna change policy on my account, I just wanted to point out that it was for me a very inconvenient and unhelpful policy), and a new phone should be winging it's way to me as we speak (although sadly another K850i, no chance of changing it even for a lesser model). But I was pretty annoyed.
Then Blizzard made the announcement at the WWI and all is forgotten. Diablo is BACK! Good as Hellgate and particularly Titan Quest were, the king is back and now all we can do is wait. Knowing Blizzard we will be waiting as well, as ever there's no mention of a release date yet (hell, Lich King and Starcraft 2 aren't even out yet!) but it doesn't matter; Diablo III is coming and all is right with the world!
Bloody Traffic!
Today's been a bit of a bastard really. Not that I had a lot of work on, just three jobs, but getting back from Basingstoke at the end of the last one took forever! I'd finished my drops by half twelve, but didn't get home till just before five! Wherever I went I was stuck in traffic, queues because of roadworks, accidents, or just there for the bloody sake of it!
*sigh*
Well I'm home now, I've had a bit of a sleep and... I've no idea what we've got planned for the evening, if anything.
Oh yeah, and I finally reached the end of my tether with my mobile. This bloody new Sony has been nothing but trouble since I got it, it locks up and shuts itself down randomly, and today the touch screen stopped working, the upshot of which is that apart from the most basic phone things (like making and answering a call, and only provided the keypad doesn't lock) it's completely useless. Back to the shop tomorrow to see if I can change it for the G600 I wanted in the first place. Let's hope that's any better.
We've Been Expecting You
Another day of the same. I've been to King's Lynn four times this week, and I'm more than a little fed up with the place so it's lucky I've got something more long distance on for tomorrow.
Today's random obsession has been Guitar Hero; or more precisely tomorrow's release of Guitar Hero Aerosmith. Now I love Guitar Hero, can't really get enough of it, however I really can't stand Aerosmith. So it's a case of the irresistible force and the immovable object. I suppose the fact that I want MORE GH will win out, after all I've played songs I've not enjoyed in other editions of the game, and discovered others I loved when I wasn't expecting them. And it also has Aerosmith's cover of The Cult's She Sells Sanctuary on it, which can't be as amazing as the original but I don't see how even they can screw up a song that good.
So yeah, that's what's been in my brain; nothing useful.
Something Else. Also Terrible.
And once again there's a huge gap for no apparent reason. At least for no good reason, I've been working, then I've been ill, then I've been working again, and there never seems anything much to say. I've seen movies (on DVD, like Cloverfield which I utterly love, or at the cinema, like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Incredibly Long Subtitle, which was utter bollocks and an insult to my intelligence). Played games, watched TV... the usual.
Cloverfield I feel is deserving of a little love as I was utterly blown away by it. Finally we have a monster movie which understands the fears of it's time! All the greats, from Godzilla onward have done that, captured the paranoia of of it's viewers and distilled them into monster form! With Cloverfield we even have the added bonus of presenting it as found media, which is oh so very zeitgeisty, but effective nonetheless. For all the Spielberg wanted to show War of the Worlds through the prism of 9/11 he failed pretty spectacularly, and Cloverfield just makes that all the more apparent and complete. It's odd that I can be so invested in a movie almost entirely devoid of story or character, which you could even conceivably dismiss as a clever trick, but it really worked for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Conversely, Indiana Jones deserves a thorough kicking; whilst the trailers hinted at clever gags on Indy's increasing age, the gags in the trailer were ALL the gags there were, and Indy remains oddly static and re-active throughout this adventure. There are many things to object to (fucking aliens? A fridge?) but as the movie barrels along it all seems enjoyable enough. It was only once the film had stopped (in fact almost immediately it'd stopped!) that the enjoyment faded and I felt that I'd somehow been the victim of a massive fraud! Seriously though, aliens?
No matter how much people tell me The Incredible Hulk is good I just can't believe it, and I still haven't been to see it. There's a part of me that simply will NOT let go of Ang Lee's Hulk, and going to see this "reboot" of the franchise seems to me almost to be dis-honouring it's memory. Which is very extreme, it's just a film. But one I love very much.
Gaming wise, well I've played a LOT of Gran Turismo 4 on the PS2 (yes, I'm still back there in last gen world. It's nice here, I know everybody and the games are cheap) and I can see why it's attracted such devotion. Although for all that, it feels oddly soulless, and the lack of damage modelling and the infuriating driver AI are perhaps the little things that are missing; I know I've enjoyed my time with Forza at least as much, and I've enjoyed knowing that my opponents can and will make mistakes and fuck up their cars! I've played Guitar Hero, but not as much as usual, and have FINALLY got around to Hellgate: London. Which is just wonderful. I know that, like Titan Quest, it's just Diablo II all over again, but unless or until Blizzard get on and actually make Diablo III (we'll see what the next mystery game is on Saturday) it'll do just fine!
What else has happened? The house has been re-arranged again (PC is now downstairs in the living room), Archie caught a frog last week (actually I suspect he found it) and... oh yeah, my car spectacularly failed it's MOT on Friday, to the tune of over four hundred pounds! Yay car! Road tax is due at the end of the month too, bloody thing. Still, it's a nice car and I like it. Not sure I like it THAT much, but there we go.
Oddly I've heard Molly's Chambers by the Kings of Leon twice in the past two days, and it reminded me how awesome I think they are.
And finally, in a random sort of way, the recent release of MGS4 on PS3 has made me want to get Twin Snakes back on the 'Cube, and then MGS3 Subsistence on PS2 (I've already got MGS2 Substance on Xbox) and BLOODY HELL they're expensive! Subsistence is changing hands for anywhere around the £75 mark, and Twin Snakes can set you back as much as £50! Wish I'd never got rid of it now, especially given how far into the game I was...
