A Question:

People who put their bags on the other seat on the bus - is death by hammers an unreasonable punishment?

currently playing: The Magic Numbers – I See You, You See Me

Weighing On My Mind

currently playing: The National – Fake Empire

The BPI, Then.

Globalisation: Great for bringing down the prices of producing materials. But, obviously, bad when the consumers try to indulge a bit of it.

Lucky Soul and Saturday Looks Good To Me on the same bill? Now that's a night for me…

currently playing: The Arcade Fire – No Cars Go

1997: Dismissed the Spice Girls as 'Tory scum.'

Laverne has complained in the past about how bossy and prescriptive males can be about their musical tastes. Then again, she admits she can fret with the best of them about how to categorise her music collection. 'There are several options,' muses Laverne. 'I could go alphabetical, or genre based, but then you get grey areas.' She likes Chris Morris's approach best. 'He categorised his records with labels that said things like, "Slow. A bit faster". She grins. 'I might go for that.'

I am saying nothing. An interview with Lauren Laverne for your delectation. Eat to your delight.

currently playing: LCD Soundsystem – Great Release

My Shiny New Toy

I was going to post about The Trap, but I’m too depressed about it to talk in any meaningful way…so instead…shiny!

This arrived in the post this week. The R4 is a flash cartridge for the Nintendo DS that allows you (via the impossibly tiny magic of microSD cards) to store multiple games on a single card. Which is handy if you're about to go away and don't want to take a multitude of easily-lost cartridges. (Also, if you're into that sort of thing, it means that you can download the entire DS catalogue from the internet. Or 'sample'.)

However, the most exciting thing about the R4, and indeed all DS flash carts is devkitProARM, a version of the GPL-licensed C compiler with additional libraries to utilise almost all of the DS's features (at the moment, only the local wi-fi seems to be eluding the amateur developers). For the price of an R4 and a microSD card, a total cost of around £35, you can get yourself a DS development environment. Hurrah!

(Yes, I have a few ideas. Abstract. And, in a vague-news style manner, it may turn out to be useful for the near future…)

There are a few excellent homebrew applications out there, but the one you need is this: SpeccyDS. Yes, you can turn the Nintendo DS into a handheld version of the greatest 8-bit computer of yesteryear (C64 owners: you were wrong then and you're still wrong now. points to Chase H.Q.). An eerie coincidence (perhaps planned by the Gods of Nintendo) means that the screen resolution of the DS's screens matches the Spectrum's almost exactly, so the games look exactly like they would have done all those years ago, just now in the palm of your hand!

I have Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner, Head Over Heels, and a host of other games for the upcoming flight. I will eventually become a real person in Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Oh yes.

(Still, what we really want is proper DS conversions of both Chaos and Rebelstar/X-Com. They'd be awesome…)

currently playing: Aimee Mann – Driving Sideways

In Two Years…

Can we have a Comic Relief special where everybody gets to hit Ricky Gervais with a hammer for twenty-four hours? Please?

currently playing: Comic Relief

Wiiiiitch!

Brian, Brian, He's Our Man

Brian Mawhinney: as useful to football as he was to Northern Ireland, then.

(although, to indulge in a little Carmodism, at least you knew where you stood back then, watching the Tories shudder in fear from Keith Flint, whereas now, you'd see him and Dave getting on at Glastonbury…)

currently playing: Blackalicious – If I May

My Name Is Ozymandias, King of Kings!

And I’m sure Adrian Veidt would have some choice words to say about this video (as would Mason from The Invisibles, come to think of it…):

currently playing: Johnny Boy – 15 Minutes

How Frontline #11 Should Have Gone

Yes, still annoyed…

currently playing: The Buzzcocks – Everybody's Happy Nowadays